r/todayilearned • u/ThisSchmitter • 7h ago

TIL that Madonna once leaked her own album on file sharing services but every track was a loop of her swearing at the downloaders. Hackers then took over her official site and posted the actual album.

news.bbc.co.uk

25.1k Upvotes

438 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 6h ago

TIL Eminem came up with the hook for his hit "My Name Is" within the first few minutes of the first studio session that he and Dr. Dre ever had together.

unilad.com

6.2k Upvotes

282 comments

r/todayilearned • u/kurgan2800 • 12h ago

TIL George Washington was called "American Fabius" for using the same strategy as Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator (the delayer) in the 2nd Punic War against Hannibal. Avoid big pitched battles and weaken the enemy through attrition

en.wikipedia.org

11.3k Upvotes

480 comments

r/todayilearned • u/altrightobserver • 3h ago

TIL that John Lennon and George Harrison were introduced to psychedelics after a guest at a party they were both attending spiked their drinks without their knowledge. Later that night, while in the elevator at a club, Harrison and Lennon thought it was on fire, becoming “hot and hysterical.”

en.wikipedia.org

1.5k Upvotes

82 comments

r/todayilearned • u/stoictrader03 • 8h ago

TIL that humidifier disinfectants in South Korea caused 1,814 confirmed deaths and an estimated 18,000 total deaths, with 58% mortality in children and 53% in adults requiring lung transplants, before the chemicals were banned in 2011.

en.wikipedia.org

3.6k Upvotes

137 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SwordfishEither2516 • 7h ago

TIL that China’s Terracotta Army, thousands of life-sized clay soldiers buried with the first emperor, was accidentally discovered in 1974 by farmers digging a well, leading to one of the greatest archaeological finds ever.

en.wikipedia.org

1.8k Upvotes

57 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Spirited_Manager_831 • 5h ago

TIL that the Manchu queue hairstyle was used by the Qing dynasty as a mandatory loyalty test, where men were forced to choose between shaving their foreheads or being executed

thechinaproject.com

1.2k Upvotes

125 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 7h ago

TIL 8 of the 10 most pirated series in 2024 were anime.

screenrant.com

1.4k Upvotes

312 comments

r/todayilearned • u/hariseldon2 • 15h ago

TIL Greenland got its name purely for marketing reasons by Erik the Red who wanted to attract settlers to his new settlement there

en.wikipedia.org

4.7k Upvotes

38 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FossilDS • 8h ago

TIL that Egypt had their own version of the Vietnam War in the 1960s: In the North Yemen Civil War, a small Egyptian intervention spiraled into an endless quagmire against royalist guerillas which ended up killing 26,000 Egyptian servicemen.

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

42 comments

r/todayilearned • u/blankblank • 6h ago

TIL that celebrating birthdays was originally a pagan tradition that early Christians did not follow.

cbsnews.com

603 Upvotes

136 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TNSasquatch77 • 23h ago

TIL some people with severe dementia or major brain damage briefly regain full mental clarity shortly before death, a phenomenon known as terminal lucidity that has no confirmed neurological explanation.

my.clevelandclinic.org

35.6k Upvotes

716 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MrMojoFomo • 9h ago

TIL of St. Clair's defeat, or the Battle of Wabash. On November 4th, 1791, a war party of over 1,000 Miamis and other Native Americans attacked and defeated a force of about 1,000 American soldiers. 24 Americans escaped alive. It was the most decisive defeat of an American military force in history

en.wikipedia.org

756 Upvotes

41 comments

r/todayilearned • u/0__o- • 12h ago

TIL your cerebellum—though only about 10 % of your brain’s total volume—contains nearly half of its neurons.

my.clevelandclinic.org

807 Upvotes

14 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TianRB • 1d ago

TIL A man named Cincinnatus was given absolute power to save Rome from an invasion; he did so in just 16 days, then immediately resigned and went back to his farm.

en.wikipedia.org

41.8k Upvotes

1.3k comments

r/todayilearned • u/EasternPotential3952 • 3h ago

TIL that if you have previously provided a sample to a marrow registry such as “Gift of Life” or “NMDP” you can request your HLA type results from them, which can provide some useful info about your likelihood of developing certain medical conditions and disease

my.nmdp.org

115 Upvotes

7 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Capital-Albatross-17 • 1d ago

TIL Swiss presidents are elected for a term length of only 1 year(Unlimited non-consecutive one-year terms). With the first day in office being 1st of January and the last day of office being 31st of December of that year.

en.wikipedia.org

5.1k Upvotes

122 comments

r/todayilearned • u/thatshygirl06 • 1d ago

TIL most missing children are runaways, and 99% of abducted children are taken by relatives, typically a noncustodial father.In response to these statistics, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has reversed their campaign focusing on "stranger danger"

en.wikipedia.org

16.2k Upvotes

698 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kikuchiy0 • 1d ago

TIL tennis balls are terrible for your dogs teeth

akc.org

8.6k Upvotes

352 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Alternative-Win4058 • 9h ago

TIL that the Oxford English Dictionary project was expected to take about a decade, but the first edition took around 70 years to complete

oed.com

226 Upvotes

20 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 12h ago

TIL that in 2018, an escalator in Rome suddenly sped up, causing twenty-four people, who had been going to see a football game, to be injured. It was later discovered that the escalator's brakes and other safety systems had been improperly maintained and tampered with.

en.wikipedia.org

365 Upvotes

18 comments

r/todayilearned • u/BDWG4EVA • 17h ago

TIL the actual train and bus used for the famous crash scene in the movie "The Fugitive" remain on the banks of the Great Smoky Railroad in North Carolina for tourists to see

theglovetrotters.com

794 Upvotes

35 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Better-Carob-2953 • 1d ago

TIL that Kim Jong-il was born in the Soviet Union under the name Yuri Irsenovich Kim, as the USSR required Russian-style names in official birth records.

en.wikipedia.org

2.5k Upvotes

84 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GoodMornEveGoodNight • 22h ago

TIL brewing tea can remove lead from water

news.northwestern.edu

1.3k Upvotes

66 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 1d ago

TIL Pierce Brosnan saved Halle Berry from choking on a fig by performing the Heimlich maneuver after she began choking on the fruit while they were in the middle of filming a love scene on the set of Die Another Day (2002).

hollywoodreporter.com

13.3k Upvotes

303 comments

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As of December 2025

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.

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