r/todayilearned • u/Sandstorm400 • 4h ago

TIL that in 2014, a recall was issued for about 2.2 million bean bag chairs that had zippers on them after two children were found dead inside two of the chairs, having suffocated from lack of air and from inhaling the chair's foam beads.

cpsc.gov

8.0k Upvotes

481 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 7h ago

TIL that in 2016, a Chinese artist spent 3 days building a $15,000 LEGO statue or Nick Wilde from Zootopia. Shortly after it was put on display, a 4-year-old boy accidentally knocked it over, destroying it. The artist refused an offer of compensation from the parents.

abcnews.com

14.3k Upvotes

757 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Gnomeslikeprofit • 3h ago

TIL that the "pre-filled" tax return is a new innovation in the tax world used by 90% of OECD countries. Gov't. administrators pre-fill a tax return based on data collected. In China, 85% of VAT refund applications info is pre-filled. The IRS, the USA's tax agency, does not offer pre-filled returns.

oecd.org

4.4k Upvotes

465 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ansyhrrian • 5h ago

TIL that in 2010, UCF professor Richard Quinn uncovered a massive cheating scandal by analyzing statistical anomalies in exam scores, prompting 205 students to come forward and forcing all 600 to retake the exam.

youtube.com

3.8k Upvotes

476 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Tall-Run-5511 • 38m ago

TIL Disneyland originally used real human skeletons provided by the UCLA Medical Center in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride because 1960s fake bones weren't convincing enough

sfgate.com

• Upvotes

74 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AetheriaNox • 7h ago

TIL in 2016, a sweet shop owner in Pakistan confessed to mixing a highly toxic pesticide into the sweets after an argument with his brother and co-owner. From 20 April to 8 May 2016, at least 33 people, including five children, died from the purposely poisoned baked confection.

en.wikipedia.org

2.5k Upvotes

99 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CyberpunkSunrise • 4h ago

TIL that the 2011 dark/action comedy film “30 Minutes or Less” mirrors a real-life event where a pizza delivery driver was forced to wear a bomb collar and rob a bank, ultimately dying when the bomb detonated, though the filmmakers denied knowledge of the real-life story.

en.wikipedia.org

1.4k Upvotes

137 comments

r/todayilearned • u/HolyCowAnyOldAccName • 7h ago

TIL you could fit every planet in the Solar System between Earth and the Moon

skyatnightmagazine.com

2.2k Upvotes

246 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TooKreamy4U • 15h ago

TIL In 2012, an Irish mother delivered her first twin prematurely, and her contractions stopped. This allowed the second twin to stay safely inside the womb for another 87 days. This rare occurrence is known as a delayed-interval delivery. It broke the previous world record of 84 days.

irishamerica.com

11.1k Upvotes

264 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ComfortableGreySloth • 10h ago

TIL about heraldic hatching, a historical method of representing color without color.

en.wikipedia.org

2.6k Upvotes

75 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MembershipHuman4837 • 10h ago

Herbert Hoover TIL that Lou Hoover - Henry Hoover's wife - had a tradition of leaving one chair empty whenever she entertained company, as a reminder of ongoing child poverty.

en.wikipedia.org

2.5k Upvotes

113 comments

r/todayilearned • u/bastugubbar • 9h ago

TIL Albert Einstein, besides his work as a physicist and mathematician was also a Fridge engineer. Together with a former student Leo Szilard he helped invent several new technologies in refrigeration and jointly held 45 patents, including a design for a fridge with no moving parts.

en.wikipedia.org

1.8k Upvotes

28 comments

r/todayilearned • u/obalovatyk • 15h ago

TIL Up until 1981 Boeing used depleted uranium as counter weights in parts of their 747’s

simpleflying.com

5.6k Upvotes

288 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NetflixSux247 • 7h ago

TIL the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie pitch was to have starred comedians Sam Kinison, Gallagher, Bobcat Goldthwait and Billy Crystal in green make-up as the turtles.

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

179 comments

r/todayilearned • u/mvincen95 • 21h ago

TIL that despite their name, it is biologically impossible for a centipede to be born with exactly 100 legs because a genetic quirk dictates they always have an odd number of leg pairs.

en.wikipedia.org

15.6k Upvotes

395 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AetheriaNox • 9h ago

TIL the longest-standing record chronicled in The Guinness Book of Records belongs to the monk, St Simeon the Stylite (c. AD 386–459), who spent approximately 39 years on a stone pillar in Syria. His purpose was self-persecution for people's sins, and to be nearer God.

guinnessworldrecords.com

856 Upvotes

124 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Citrus2015 • 12h ago

TIL: Eumenes of Cardia who went from being Alexander the Great's secretary to defeating one of Alexander's greatest generals in his first major battle

en.wikipedia.org

1.0k Upvotes

69 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 57m ago

TIL that Portugal’s crown prince, Pedro, was governing Brazil when he declared its independence in 1822, breaking with the kingdom ruled by his own father. A month later, he declared himself Brazil’s first emperor.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

18 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 23h ago

TIL about Cryptic Pregnancies, which is when a pregnancy shows little to no symptoms to the point that the woman can be unaware that she is pregnant until she is in labor in some cases.

my.clevelandclinic.org

7.4k Upvotes

822 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NBrief • 2h ago

TIL that Finnish physicist Tuomo Suntola developed atomic layer deposition technology in the 1970s, a process now used to manufacture the ultra-thin material layers found in modern microprocessors and digital memory devices.

en.wikipedia.org

128 Upvotes

2 comments

r/todayilearned • u/licecrispies • 12h ago

TIL that earthquakes can trigger outbreaks of lasting vertigo in humans, which is known as Post-Earthquake Dizziness Syndrome

aonojournal.com

683 Upvotes

31 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Finnish_Swede • 9h ago

TIL that King Charles III’s paternal grandfather, Prince Andrew of Greece, was a Major General in the Greco-Turkish War and got court-martialed and exiled after being blamed for losing the important Battle of the Sakarya which caused the Greek defeat in the war.

en.wikipedia.org

375 Upvotes

35 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 7h ago

TIL Russian Greco-Roman wrestler Aleksandr Karelin won three Olympic gold medals and nine world championships, retiring with 887 wins and just two losses. His final defeat came against American Rulon Gardner at the 2000 Olympics by one point in a controversial call.

en.wikipedia.org

222 Upvotes

59 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Impressive-Mix5605 • 11h ago

TIL that in 1814, British naturalist James Sowerby made a sword from meteoritic iron as a gift for Russian Emperor Alexander I.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

378 Upvotes

16 comments

r/todayilearned • u/dr--moreau • 1d ago

TIL chewing gum is not biodegradable because it is made from synthetic polymers and plastics

greenfi.com

14.7k Upvotes

939 comments

Subreddit

Posts

Wiki

Today I Learned (TIL)

r/todayilearned

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today? Submit interesting and specific facts about something that you just found out here.

Members Active

41.7m

Sidebar

New to reddit? Click here!

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?
Submit interesting and specific facts that you just found out (not broad information you looked up, TodayILearned is not /r/wikipedia).

Posting rules

Submissions must be verifiable. Please link directly to a reliable source that supports every claim in your post title. Images alone do not count as valid references. Videos are fine so long as they come from reputable sources (e.g. BBC, Discovery, etc).
No personal opinions, anecdotes or subjective statements (e.g "TIL xyz is a great movie").
No recent sources. Any sources (blog, article, press release, video, etc.) with a publication date more recent than two months are not allowed.
No politics, soapboxing, or agenda based submissions. This includes (but is not limited to) submissions related to:
1. Recent political issues and politicians
2. Social and economic issues (including race/religion/gender)
3. Environmental issues
4. Police misconduct
No misleading claims. Posts that omit essential information, or present unrelated facts in a way that suggest a connection will be removed.
Rephrase your post title if the following are not met:
1. Titles must begin with "TIL ..."
2. Make them descriptive, concise and specific (e.g. not "TIL something interesting about bacon").
3. Titles must be able to stand on their own without requiring readers to click on a link. Starting your title with a why/what/who/where/how modifier should be unnecessary.
4. "TIL about ..." and other broad posts don't belong on TIL. Try /r/Wikipedia, etc. instead, or be more specific (and avoid the word "about").
5. "TIL how to ..." posts belong on /r/HowTo.
6. "TIL the definition of a word..." Word definitions/translations/origins are not appropriate here
No submissions related to the usage, existence or features of specific software/websites (e.g. "TIL you can click on widgets in WidgetMaker 1.22").
All NSFW links must be tagged (including comments).

Please see the wiki for more detailed explanations of the rules, as well as additional rules that may not be listed here

(Why we need rules)

Additional info

If your post does not appear in the new queue and you think it meets the above rules, please contact the moderators (include a link to your reddit.com post, not your story).
Please report spam, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate posts by messaging the moderators, as this helps us remove them more promptly!
More information available on the TIL FAQ and wiki.

Frequent TILs Repost List

As of May 2026

This list was compiled from /r/todayilearned community suggestions by its members. If your TIL is found on this list, it will be removed. The titles have been abridged for the sake of brevity, however the context remains the same. This list is subject to change. The purpose is to keep content fresh on /r/todayilearned as requested by its members. If you are interested in reading about the TILs on this list use the search box feature and enter the keywords to pull up past TILs.

Etiquette

We ask that you please do the following:

avoid mobile versions of websites (e.g. m.wikipedia.org)
link to the appropriate heading when referencing an article (particularly on Wikipedia)
link to the appropriate start time when referencing videos (e.g. on YouTube)
add [PDF] or [NSFW] tags to your posts, as necessary.
Please avoid reposting TILs that have already made the front page in the past

Please also read the site-wide Reddiquette.

You are loved.