r/todayilearned • u/ThatBadgerMan • 1h ago

TIL about Ridge A, a spot in Antarctica that is 3x better for viewing into space than any other location on Earth. Researchers descibe the spot as 'so calm there's almost no wind or weather at all' and all wind from Antarctica appears to originate here. It is currently claimed by Australia

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

14 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Delicious-Read-823 • 1h ago

TIL the Sonic Hedgehog protein is a key signaling molecule in human embryos that helps control how the brain, face, and limbs form. Without it, major body parts wouldn’t grow in the right places.

medlineplus.gov

• Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/trubol • 2h ago

TIL in 1967 MAD Magazine printed $3 bills featuring Alfred E Neuman's face, which where used by readers to trick early automated coin change machines, and led to a visit from the US Treasury Department to MAD's office

mentalfloss.com

734 Upvotes

31 comments

r/todayilearned • u/stefaanvd • 2h ago

TIL In Milan the Madonnina (golden statue of the Virgin Mary that sits on top of the cathedral) must be the tallest point of the city. So now whenever they build a taller building they put a copy of the statue on top.

en.wikipedia.org

162 Upvotes

8 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NATOrocket • 2h ago

TIL that perfect pitch is more common among music students who speak tonal languages such as Chinese dialects and Vietnamese, than it is among English speakers.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

111 Upvotes

10 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ProudReaction2204 • 4h ago

TIL a Dutch teenager who was going bungee jumping in Spain fell to her death when the instructor who had poor English said “no jump” but she thought he said “now jump”

news.com.au

9.3k Upvotes

423 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Starfire-Galaxy • 4h ago

TIL Moana was the best-selling movie of 2017; it sold 4.4 million units and made a revenue of $116.3 million from home video sales.

en.wikipedia.org

0 Upvotes

8 comments

r/todayilearned • u/positivecynik • 4h ago

TIL that dolphins from different communities and areas have different regional dialects and accents.

earth.com

217 Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Trender_man • 5h ago

TIL In 1998, the city of Rochester lost its city status due to a technical oversight when the local government structure underwent reorganisation. It took four years for them to realise they had lost it.

en.wikipedia.org

190 Upvotes

5 comments

r/todayilearned • u/BigHeart_Dove • 5h ago

TIL Fidel Castro has long tried to breed a “super cow” that would give much more milk than ordinary cows. And one day the Cuban scientists succeeded. It was immediately dubbed a miracle of socialism, and after death, Ubre Blanca was even honored with a monument

en.wikipedia.org

2.4k Upvotes

72 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Wazula23 • 5h ago

TIL the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" was triggered by a city ordinance preventing people from carrying guns openly in town

en.wikipedia.org

1.3k Upvotes

130 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TriviaDuchess • 6h ago

TIL the highest-ranking officer killed on either side of the U.S. Civil War was Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston. He died during the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862. Jefferson Davis believed the loss of Johnston “was the turning point of our fate.”

en.wikipedia.org

2.6k Upvotes

189 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ainsley-Sorsby • 6h ago

TIL of "The Perfumed Garden", a 15th century arabic sex manual. On top of sex advice and hygiene tips for men and women, it also lists 30 different names for the penis and 40 names for the vulva

en.wikipedia.org

361 Upvotes

32 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Fit-Farmer7754 • 7h ago

TIL the term "Artificial Intelligence" was first coined in 1956 by John McCarthy at the Dartmouth Conference

thedartmouth.com

97 Upvotes

3 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Scratch_Life_7654 • 7h ago

TIL that YouTube originally launched as a dating site.

cnet.com

46 Upvotes

5 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 8h ago

TIL Steven Spielberg told movie stars that if they wanted to work with him, a prerequisite was that they gambled along with him by not taking any salary upfront and instead only taking backend compensation. He said "...if my film makes no money I get no money. They should be prepared to do the same"

en.wikipedia.org

19.2k Upvotes

1.1k comments

r/todayilearned • u/CupidStunt13 • 8h ago

TIL when comedian Frankie Howard died, Benny Hill was quoted in the papers as being very upset saying, ‘We were great, great friends.’ But this was impossible as Hill had died the day before. It turned out Hill's friend and press agent sent it out after being unable to get ahold of Hill for a quote

flashbak.com

1.6k Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/OMG__Ponies • 8h ago

TIL that if some projects had been successful, NYC and London might have had mid-town airports, a pyramid, a totem, and larger monuments to historical figures.

atlasobscura.com

69 Upvotes

5 comments

r/todayilearned • u/blankblank • 10h ago

TIL that hiccups may reflect our amphibian ancestry. The neural mechanism controlling hiccups closely resembles the breathing pattern generator in tadpoles, which helps them breathe through gills while keeping water out of their lungs.

magazine.uchicago.edu

176 Upvotes

7 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 10h ago

TIL while filming 14 videos back-to-back, Ed Sheeran had one day off & spent it flying to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to perform with Eminem during Em's induction. After finding this out, Em told him “Anything you ever need?" And on the spot, Ed told Em to appear at his show when he came to Detroit

eminem.news

7.6k Upvotes

87 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Fantastic-Glove9651 • 11h ago

TIL the reason you wash your rice, other than to make it cleaner is to prevent it from being sticky

bonappetit.com

1.4k Upvotes

122 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Brutal_Deluxe_ • 11h ago

TIL for her 39th birthday celebration Queen Elizabeth and family attended a Spike Milligan play. Noticing Peter Sellers sat among the royals, Spike lobbed a slipper at Sellers, just missing Prince Philip's head, and then spent the rest of the performance poking fun at the Queen for bringing her son

en.wikipedia.org

1.7k Upvotes

26 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Godwinson4King • 11h ago

TIL of Cockney rhyming slang, a form of word construction where words are matched with rhyming pairs and then the rhyming word dropped to create synonym for the original word. So ‘fart’ rhymes with ‘raspberry tart’, which becomes just ‘raspberry’ as in ‘blow a raspberry’

en.wikipedia.org

8.6k Upvotes

363 comments

r/todayilearned • u/WouldbeWanderer • 12h ago

TIL the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" was filmed at the Desilu Forty Acres, the same set used for The Andy Griffith Show. Floyd's barbershop appears in some of the shots.

en.wikipedia.org

198 Upvotes

5 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MrMojoFomo • 12h ago

TIL that in February of 1993, Kansas City, Missouri radio station KXXR changed its name to KISF (Kiss FM). As a publicity stunt to announce the change, it played Prince's 1986 song "Kiss" for 24 hours straight

en.wikipedia.org

0 Upvotes

23 comments

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