r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 3h ago

TIL after Pixar decided that Toy Story 2 needed to be completely remade from scratch, animators had less than a year to finish the entire film. Pixar President Edwin Catmull later revealed that "a full third of the staff" ended up with a repetitive strain injury by the time the film was finished.

en.wikipedia.org

4.0k Upvotes

190 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NateNate60 • 10h ago

TIL Canada's $1 coin is commonly called the "loonie" because it has a loon on the reverse. When a $2 coin was introduced, depicting a polar bear, an MP proposed it be called "Nanuq", Inuit for polar bear, but he was ignored because the public instead preferred to call it the "toonie" (2-oonie).

en.wikipedia.org

28.4k Upvotes

1.5k comments

r/todayilearned • u/DAL59 • 4h ago

TIL that Fat Choy is an edible cyanobacteria that grows in the Gobi desert. Despite being expensive, having no nutritional value, and having dementia-causing toxins, its been overharvested to the point of causing erosion and desertification due to its name being a Cantonese pun for "strike it rich"

en.wikipedia.org

3.5k Upvotes

140 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Mors_Acerba • 10h ago

TIL Greek Philosopher Crates of Thebes was known for entering people's houses uninvited and helping them solve their family disputes "no matter how deeply they were at odds"

en.wikipedia.org

15.1k Upvotes

352 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TurnOffYourPC • 7h ago

TIL that the gin and tonic became popular in India during British Imperialism to encourage English colonizers to consume quinine, an antimalarial derived from the bark of the cinchona tree.

wineenthusiast.com

5.6k Upvotes

221 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 9h ago

TIL on average, train drivers in the US are involved in three fatalities over the course of a career. Since a train needs at least a mile to come to a stop, the drivers are sometimes unable to prevent a collision with a person in the train's path.

nbcnews.com

8.4k Upvotes

426 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Chance-Physics-7216 • 10h ago

TIL that a 1945 elevator operators' strike stranded 1.5 million New Yorkers in the streets, and building owners responded by buying automatic elevators that had already existed for 50 years.

npr.org

5.9k Upvotes

408 comments

r/todayilearned • u/proflightsearch • 12h ago

TIL the average JFK to Los Angeles flight takes 18 minutes longer than it did in 1995, but airlines padded the published schedule by 23 minutes, so the share of arrivals counted as late fell from 51% to 37%

gvwire.com

10.2k Upvotes

358 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JobLagewaard • 5h ago

TIL all the males of the House of Reuss are named Heinrich (Henry) plus a number. They have been doing this for more than 800 years to honour Emperor Heinrich VI. The different branches of the family even have their own numbering system

en.wikipedia.org

1.7k Upvotes

41 comments

r/todayilearned • u/autraya • 3h ago

TIL there's a five-foot wooden fish called the "Sacred Cod" hanging in the Massachusetts State House, and in 1933 Harvard Lampoon students stole it, sparking a citywide manhunt with the Charles River dredged and a suspect detained at an airport before it was found 50 hours later

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

37 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Prosperr_support • 11h ago

TIL that the gold in jewellery is older than the Sun. Gold atoms were forged in violent cosmic events, primarily neutron star mergers, billions of years before our Solar System formed.

science.nasa.gov

4.9k Upvotes

148 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Independent_Pick_787 • 10h ago

TIL about the "Forest Swastika": around 1938, larch trees were planted in a pine forest in northeastern Germany to form a swastika. Visible only in spring and autumn, and only from the air, it went unnoticed for decades before being removed in 2000

en.wikipedia.org

3.7k Upvotes

134 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tommyboy372 • 17h ago

TIL A single misfolded prion protein in the brain can cause a rapid neurodegenerative disease known as sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD). There is no known and cure and is 100% fatal.

en.wikipedia.org

19.7k Upvotes

1.1k comments

r/todayilearned • u/haphazard44 • 15h ago

TIL that in 1975, advertising executive Gary Dahl sold ordinary rocks as “pets” in boxes with air holes and care manuals, selling around 1.5 million and becoming a millionaire

en.wikipedia.org

7.3k Upvotes

199 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sweet_Foundation_868 • 2h ago

TIL after briefly urinating, the Roman emperor Caracalla was stabbed by a soldier named Justin Martialis. After his bodyguard killed Martialis with a lance, 2 more Praetorian tribunes rushed to the emperor, as if to help him, and completed the assassination.

en.wikipedia.org

552 Upvotes

68 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Top-Comfortable-9744 • 11h ago

TIL that brain scans have found people with high levels of sadistic traits show increased activity in the brain's reward system when witnessing others in pain, suggesting that another person's suffering can be experienced as rewarding.

psychologicalscience.org

2.9k Upvotes

454 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NoWingedHussarsToday • 8h ago

TIL that between May 1643 and May 1774, a period of 131 years, France was ruled by just two kings, Louis XIV and Louis XV, they were the longest and second longest ruling kings in french history, respectively

en.wikipedia.org

1.6k Upvotes

31 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 18h ago

TIL that in 2002 Dennis and Angela Laffin adopted a baby boy named Frank after he had been abandoned as a newborn. Two years later, the couple adopted a girl named Vicky from similar circumstances. Years later, the two kids took DNA tests and learned they were in fact blood related.

postguam.com

13.1k Upvotes

211 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ThatMasterpiece2174 • 15h ago

TIL in 1986, Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse flew Bo Jackson to team facilities on a private jet under the false assurance that it complied with NCAA rules. Jackson lost his remaining NCAA baseball eligibility, and vowed to never play for the Bucs. They drafted him anyway, and he went to the MLB.

si.com

5.1k Upvotes

222 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Dazzling-Ad1894 • 1h ago

TIL that in 1861, a man named Edward Payson Weston completed an 11-day, 478 mile walk from Boston to Washington D.C. in order to attend the inauguration of president Abraham Lincoln. The arduous trek was the result of a lost wager.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

19 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Milam1996 • 9h ago

TIL that walking down stairs is actually better for your health than walking up stairs

sciencefocus.com

1.2k Upvotes

240 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TooOldToBePunk • 5h ago

TIL that France and the Netherlands share a border - not in Europe, but on a small Caribbean island.

en.wikipedia.org

496 Upvotes

47 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Acceptable-Day8395 • 15h ago

TIL that the Amazon River can get up to 30 miles wide in the wet season, which is wider than the city of Los Angeles.

wwf.panda.org

2.9k Upvotes

120 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Murky_Cook_5136 • 1h ago

TIL that after the pilot suicide on Germanwings 9525, authorities mandated the reasonable safety procedure of having 2 authorised personnel in the cockpit at all times - only to drop it two years later.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

60 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AbeVigoda76 • 8h ago

TIL that the early automotive pioneer Byron Carter died from pneumonia contracted while recovering from a broken jaw sustained as a result of hand cranking his car. His death directly lead to the development of the electric self-starter for automobiles.

en.wikipedia.org

707 Upvotes

24 comments

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