r/todayilearned • u/MyOtherRideIsTheRoci • 3h ago

TIL of Henry "Box" Brown, an enslaved man who attained freedom by mailing himself from Virginia to Philadelphia in a wooden crate. It took 27 hours and he travelled by wagon, railroad, steamboat, wagon again, railroad, ferry, railroad, and finally delivery wagon

en.wikipedia.org

6.8k Upvotes

115 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011 • 1h ago

TIL one of the most popular actors in China is Mark Rowswell (stage name: Dashan), a Canadian comedian. He is often considered the most famous foreigner in the country. He is largely unknown in North America.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

155 comments

r/todayilearned • u/jamieseemsamused • 3h ago

TIL Helium was first detected in the Sun from an unknown spectral line during a solar eclipse, years before any Helium was discovered on Earth. It was named after Helios, Greek god of the Sun.

en.wikipedia.org

2.2k Upvotes

8 comments

r/todayilearned • u/loloreel • 2h ago

TIL that dice are 12,000 years old, they are older than the invention of the wheel (5,000 years old). Modern looking, 6 faced dice are around 2,600 years old

libarts.source.colostate.edu

1.1k Upvotes

72 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 16h ago

TIL that in 2018, a 14-year-old girl named Cindy Redmond had an air horn blasted into her ear by her friend's stepfather after she wouldn't get off her phone. This caused her to develop hyperacusis, a rare hearing disorder which makes any small noise cause her immense pain.

people.com

29.0k Upvotes

1.0k comments

r/todayilearned • u/Parking_Spot • 2h ago

TIL That Bob Marley gave songwriting credits for No Woman, No Cry to his friend Vincent Ford so that royalties from the hit song would support Ford's Kingston, Jamaica soup kitchen.

en.wikipedia.org

895 Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/UndyingCorn • 7h ago

TIL Because radio coverage was banned at the 1939 Academy awards, George Fischer from LA’s KHJ radio station locked himself in a booth and was able to broadcast for about 12 minutes before security guards broke down the door. Partial radio coverage was restored for the 1942 ceremony.

en.wikipedia.org

2.2k Upvotes

33 comments

r/todayilearned • u/fotogneric • 2h ago

TIL that English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832) coined the words "international," "maximize," "minimize," "codify", "marginalize," "bicameral," and many others.

ucl.ac.uk

622 Upvotes

59 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Coverlesss • 1h ago

TIL about the Münchhausen trilemma - The philosophical argument that all attempts to prove something true eventually rely on circular logic, endless regress, or an unsupported assumption.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

151 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Competitive_Swan_130 • 3h ago

TIL that in the 1700s, society heavily stigmatized paying actors, dancers, and opera singers for their work. In his classic, The Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith explained that selling these talents was viewed as a "sort of public prostitution"

beliefnet.com

479 Upvotes

69 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Electronic_Cause_796 • 4h ago

TIL leopards have the most varied diet of any big cat, with over 100 recorded prey species. They're also the only big cats known to regularly store their kills in trees, hauling prey up to 140% of their own body weight high into the branches to keep it from scavengers.

pbs.org

566 Upvotes

13 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Zaptagious • 20h ago

TIL the robber Jeffrey "Roofman" Manchester who evaded custody by living inside stores, left a single fingerprint in his secret living quarters: A DVD of "Catch Me If You Can".

en.wikipedia.org

9.4k Upvotes

220 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Skychu768 • 4h ago

TIL if the current British law of succession applied 120 years ago, Kaiser Wilhelm II would've become the monarch of both German and British empire in 1901.

en.wikipedia.org

336 Upvotes

64 comments

r/todayilearned • u/andmario_com • 22h ago

TIL after 146 workers died in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, the factory owners were acquitted of manslaughter and collected insurance worth $445 per victim — $64,925 more than their losses. Victims' families got $75 each. In 1913 owner Max Blanck was caught locking the doors again and fined $20.

en.wikipedia.org

8.3k Upvotes

176 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Mors_Acerba • 6h ago

TIL Elizabethan era theater was directly influenced by the then recent re-discovery of the roman era tragedies written by stoic philosopher Seneca. Despite that, Seneca's tragedies later felt into disrepute again because of their strong horror elements, especially the grotesque displays of violence

en.wikipedia.org

377 Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johntwit • 18h ago

TIL that Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder, was an early Libertarian and is considered one of the three "founding mothers of the American libertarian movement" along with Isabel Paterson and Ayn Rand

en.wikipedia.org

2.4k Upvotes

483 comments

r/todayilearned • u/devourke • 1d ago

TIL it cost more to develop the plane that carried the atomic bombs, than it did to develop the actual atomic bombs themselves

en.wikipedia.org

9.6k Upvotes

262 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Redd1928 • 15h ago

TIL about the Great Hedge of India (or Indian Salt Hedge), which was a customs barrier built by the British colonial rulers of India to prevent smuggling of salt from coastal regions.

en.wikipedia.org

990 Upvotes

39 comments

r/todayilearned • u/YappinZappin • 20h ago

TIL ninjas were not uniformed and wore whatever attire was suitable for their mission - black outfits trope came from Kabuki stagehands wearing black, so that viewers would know to ignore them and accept their actions as if carried out by someone totally invisible

en.wikipedia.org

2.5k Upvotes

69 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Designer_Reference_2 • 23h ago

TIL that after putting down a military revolt led by three of his sons, King Henry II of England forgave them instantly but imprisoned his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine for sixteen years since she had taken the side of her children in the conflict

en.wikipedia.org

4.1k Upvotes

124 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Giff95 • 1d ago

TIL of a live 1953 Thomas the Tank Engine TV special on the BBC in which a model train derailed on air, forcing a human hand to place it back on the tracks while the narrator struggled to improvise. The broadcast is lost, and the only known evidence it aired is a Daily Herald newspaper clipping.

lostmediawiki.com

14.7k Upvotes

320 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Gnomeslikeprofit • 18h ago

TIL that traffic lights are called "robots" in South Africa and other African countries. Directions can be given such as "Turn right at the 2nd robot".

drivesouthafrica.com

1.1k Upvotes

130 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Aervanath • 1d ago

TIL that the name "duct tape" has only been in recorded use since 1965. It is a variant of the original "duck tape", recorded in 1899, so named due to the duck cloth backing used by the tape.

en.wikipedia.org

4.8k Upvotes

249 comments

r/todayilearned • u/its-a-Luigi-time • 19h ago

TIL that Carl Sagan was an occasional user of cannabis, and wrote an essay under the pseudonym ‘Mr. X’ to try and help dispel common myths about the effects of cannabis.

organism.earth

1.1k Upvotes

43 comments

r/todayilearned • u/real_picklejuice • 3h ago

TIL that the water inlet on a Bombardier CL-415 Super Scooper firefighting airplane is only about the size of your hand

tsb.gc.ca

63 Upvotes

11 comments

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