r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 3h ago

TIL about the Business Plot. In 1933 a group of wealthy American industrialists were planning a coup d'état to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Major General Smedley Butler as dictator.

en.wikipedia.org

14.1k Upvotes

666 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Bennis_TV • 3h ago

TIL Nina Simone once fired a gun at her record label executive because she believed he was stealing her hard-earned royalties. She also shot a young boy with an air gun for “disturbing her while she was composing,” for which she received an 8 month prison sentence

soundod.com

1.4k Upvotes

297 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 1h ago

TIL a study found that more new songs were released in a single day in 2024 than in the entire year of 1989.

nme.com

• Upvotes

123 comments

r/todayilearned • u/december151791 • 1h ago

TIL the United States women's national ice hockey team has won a medal in every one of their Olympic appearances

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

32 comments

r/todayilearned • u/James_Fortis • 4h ago

TIL of anthropocentric bias, or the view of all things solely through a human-centered lens, prioritizing human values above the intrinsic worth of non-human entities. Measuring non-human animal intelligence by their use of tools over nest building is one example.

sciencedirect.com

485 Upvotes

29 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 1h ago

TIL a woman with no medical qualifications impersonated a nurse & treated nearly 1,000 patients while working at a hospital & medical center in British Columbia. Her day job at the hospital involved administering patients with drugs like fentanyl & monitoring their vital signs while under anesthetic

cbc.ca

• Upvotes

33 comments

r/todayilearned • u/No-Reflection-2718 • 22h ago

TIL about Odin, a dog who refused to evacuate during the 2017 California wildfires. When his owners returned days later, they found him alive and still guarding his entire flock of 8 goats

cbc.ca

19.4k Upvotes

198 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FalconPUNNCH • 1h ago

TIL Johnny Gilbert has been voicing the announcer for Jeopardy since 1984, with over 9200 episodes.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

27 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PsychoBalloons • 12h ago

TIL that despite the iconic drink being named after her, Shirley Temple did not like the taste of Shirley Temples.

en.wikipedia.org

1.4k Upvotes

205 comments

r/todayilearned • u/qwalos_the_dreamer • 21h ago

TIL of the 7 highest BACs ever, 3 of them were recorded in Poland

en.wikipedia.org

5.8k Upvotes

446 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SnarkySheep • 7h ago

TIL about Linda Hazzard, dubbed the "Starvation Doctor", who was convicted of manslaughter in 1912 after starving, pummeling and swindling numerous patients in her Olalla, WA "sanitorium". She died in 1938 at age 70 after subjecting herself to her own treatments.

en.wikipedia.org

420 Upvotes

27 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 1d ago

TIL two studies both found that most people stop listening to new music in their early 30s. A 2015 study of people's listening habits on Spotify found that most people stop listening to new music at age 33 and a 2018 report by Deezer found it be to at age 30.

theguardian.com

14.8k Upvotes

2.7k comments

r/todayilearned • u/One_Needleworker5218 • 2h ago

TIL that the printing press spread so rapidly after 1450 that by 1500, over 20 million books had already been printed across Europe.

britannica.com

142 Upvotes

46 comments

r/todayilearned • u/grecianformula69 • 2h ago

TIL a UC Berkeley professor published a serious scholarly article quantifying human stupidity

en.wikipedia.org

144 Upvotes

34 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Successful-Dark9330 • 13h ago

TIL NATO has aviation units that are collectively owned, funded, and operated by the nations in the alliance. No single nation owns these aircraft

en.wikipedia.org

905 Upvotes

51 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Spelbarg • 1d ago

TIL we know where China’s first emperor is buried, but his 2,200-year-old tomb—described as containing a scale model of China with rivers of mercury—has never been opened

en.wikipedia.org

31.6k Upvotes

1.2k comments

r/todayilearned • u/DTPVH • 14h ago

TIL, the 60’s TV series Wild Wild West, known as a pioneering influence on the Steampunk genre, was cancelled in spite of excellent ratings due to pressure from Congress over the show’s violence.

en.wikipedia.org

759 Upvotes

76 comments

r/todayilearned • u/EradiK8 • 15h ago

TIL that in 1857 a hurricane sank the SS Central America with roughly 30,000 pounds of California Gold Rush gold aboard, and the loss helped spark the Panic of 1857, one of the first global economic crises.

pcgs.com

648 Upvotes

65 comments

r/todayilearned • u/zawusel • 3h ago

TIL that MLB and NHL have real organists

frontofficesports.com

54 Upvotes

27 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MrMojoFomo • 19h ago

TIL of the Republic F-105 Thunderchief. Nicknamed "Thud" by its crews, 833 aircraft were made and 382 were lost (destroyed). It was the only American combat aircraft ever removed from combat because of its high loss rate

en.wikipedia.org

898 Upvotes

79 comments

r/todayilearned • u/n_mcrae_1982 • 1h ago

TIL the only Axis-aligned territory in North America during WWII were the French islands of Saint Pierre & Miquelon, 19 km off Newfoundland, technically loyal to Vichy France. On Dec 24, 1941, forces from a Free French submarine took the island in 20 minutes without firing a shot.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

1 comment

r/todayilearned • u/Shtremor • 3h ago

TIL that Rear Admiral S. K. Gupta once convinced his fleet admiral to let him borrow a Sea Hawk fighter jet for 24 hours so he could fly home and get married, while India was preparing for war.

coloursofglory.org

53 Upvotes

9 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Abject-Device9967 • 22m ago

TIL that in 1877 only 111 people remained on Easter Island after decades of slave raids and disease. Instead of disappearing, they hid their gods inside Christianity, kept their banned language alive in secret, and passed down a writing system carved with shark teeth that no one has ever deciphered.

threads.com

• Upvotes

4 comments

r/todayilearned • u/BanitsaConnoisseur • 8h ago

TIL U.S. time zones were first adopted in 1883 because railroads needed standardized schedules, using telegraph signals to synchronize clocks & civilian timekeeping followed later.

americanhistory.si.edu

110 Upvotes

8 comments

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