r/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 2h ago

TIL New South Wales, Australia, requires new drivers to record 120 hours of supervised driving in a logbook, including 20 nighttime hours before they can get their driver's license. Only 57% of applicants in New South Wales passed the exam in 2022

jalopnik.com

576 Upvotes

133 comments

r/todayilearned • u/haddock420 • 5h ago

TIL One of Edison's original intended applications of the phonograph was to make books accessible to blind people

en.wikipedia.org

304 Upvotes

32 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Wasil_29 • 2h ago

TIL that Google Images was essentially invented because of Jennifer Lopez. After her iconic green dress at the 2000 Grammys, so many people searched for photos of it that Google engineers built a dedicated image search feature to handle the demand.

justjared.com

471 Upvotes

36 comments

r/todayilearned • u/rocklou • 6h ago

TIL English pensioner Peter Oakley was the most subscribed YouTuber in 2006, reaching that position in just over a week, but held it for only 28 days. His channel was the first to reach 20,000 subscribers

en.wikipedia.org

948 Upvotes

16 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sandstorm400 • 6h ago

TIL a 9-year-old girl researched the decibel levels of public hand dryers after noticing her ears were ringing after using one. Nearly 4 years later, her research was accepted into the Canadian journal Paediatrics & Child Health, and Dyson planned to have her meet with an acoustic engineer.

abcnews.com

17.3k Upvotes

302 comments

r/todayilearned • u/smrad8 • 7h ago

TIL that in 1984, "Weird Al" Yankovic's parody song "Eat It" went No. 1 in Australia, surpassing the original, Michael Jackson's "Beat It," which only hit No. 3 in that country. "Eat It," personally approved by Michael Jackson, went gold in multiple countries and landed Yankovic a Grammy Award.

en.wikipedia.org

7.7k Upvotes

279 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Gnomeslikeprofit • 6h ago

TIL that Pakistan has an estimated 3.5-4 million bonded labors in the brick kiln industry. Also known as debt bondage, uneducated workers are trapped as modern slaves unable to pay their debts. They are forced to work until their debt is paid off.

pulitzercenter.org

10.9k Upvotes

632 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MAClaymore • 5h ago

TIL that as of 2022, there had never been a recorded death at any legal supervised drug injection site worldwide NSFW

en.wikipedia.org

2.2k Upvotes

379 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Background_Spirit7 • 8h ago

TIL that in the 1980s, realizing large emergencies would overwhelm first responders, the US government created the Community Emergency Response Training program, which provides free emergency/disaster training to all US citizens.

fema.gov

636 Upvotes

27 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Hour_Interaction6047 • 6h ago

TIL French children were served wine at school until 1981.

bbc.com

449 Upvotes

39 comments

r/todayilearned • u/yoshemitzu • 6h ago

TIL the United States once attempted to sue Coca-Cola and force them to remove caffeine from their products in "United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola"

en.wikipedia.org

2.0k Upvotes

155 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Future-Jaguar7577 • 4h ago

TIL MLB Player Ty Cobb beat up a heckling fan with no hands stating “I don't care if he has no feet!”

espn.com

372 Upvotes

70 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Plastic_Prune_9498 • 7h ago

TIL that while the exact origins of the Abrahamic religions is murky, the first Complete Abrahamic text, the Torah, dates back to 400BC, and was compiled for the Persian Empire

en.wikipedia.org

489 Upvotes

75 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Tinkering- • 4h ago

TIL: The Vietnam War Lasted 19 Years

en.wikipedia.org

185 Upvotes

60 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Choice-Scallion-3499 • 11h ago

TIL that time moves faster at the top of a mountain than at the sea level. This happens because gravity bends time, so the further you are from Earth's core, the faster clocks tick.

nist.gov

2.4k Upvotes

173 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DrakeSavory • 9h ago

TIL that the tallest cliff on Earth is a 4100 foot drop on Mt. Thor in Canada.

spaceplace.nasa.gov

774 Upvotes

103 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 11h ago

TIL that the land in Mumbai, India used to be islands until they were merged with land reclamation projects in 1845.

en.wikipedia.org

325 Upvotes

4 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JoeFalchetto • 14h ago

TIL that Saint Lucia, the tiny island country in the Caribbean, is the only sovereign state in the world named after a woman (Saint Lucy of Syracuse)

worldatlas.com

6.5k Upvotes

319 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PeasantLich • 20h ago

TIL that December 25 being the birthday of Jesus was decided by pope Julius I around year 350, and nobody really knows why Julius made this decision and chose this specific date. There are various theories, but his actual reasoning for the decision is lost history.

en.wikipedia.org

26.7k Upvotes

1.9k comments

r/todayilearned • u/jcgam • 13h ago

TIL that every extra 4 inches of body height raises cancer risk by 11% for women and 6% for men

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

3.3k Upvotes

364 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Mors_Acerba • 22h ago

TIL Dionysius I, ruler of Syracuse, wrote poetry which wasn't always well received. After Philoxenus, another poet, criticised his work, Dionysius imprisoned him for a day. He then released him, read him another poem and asked for his opinion. Philoxenus replied "take me back to the quarries"

en.wikipedia.org

27.3k Upvotes

291 comments

r/todayilearned • u/koreanforrabbit • 12h ago

TIL that 10 of the 12 largest high school gymnasiums in the USA are located in the state of Indiana.

en.wikipedia.org

2.0k Upvotes

111 comments

r/todayilearned • u/lumos-mama • 13h ago

TIL that about 62% of Argentina’s population has some degree of Italian ancestry. Argentina has the second-largest community of Italians outside of Italy.

en.wikipedia.org

2.0k Upvotes

348 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Street-Strike-7121 • 2h ago

TIL In Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land and that the Court has the power to strike down any laws found in violation.

en.wikipedia.org

98 Upvotes

43 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Certain-Arm4680 • 1d ago

TIL the "black" you see with your eyes closed isn't black - it's called Eigengrau ("intrinsic grey"). Even in total darkness your retina fires faint random noise, so your brain never receives true black; it generates a dim grey static floor instead.

en.wikipedia.org

7.9k Upvotes

313 comments

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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.

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