r/todayilearned • u/Milwambur • 12h ago

TIL that Eva Longaria spent 6 million dollars saving a film after her agent told her it was the right call. She now says its the best money she ever spent. That film? John Wick

variety.com

49.3k Upvotes

710 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 15h ago

TIL when Carrie Fisher told Harrison Ford she was going to publish her journals & reveal they had an affair (Ford was married) while filming Star Wars (1977), Ford raised his finger & said "Lawyer!" Fisher said he could read it beforehand & take anything out. She sent it to him but never heard back.

npr.org

38.0k Upvotes

1.4k comments

r/todayilearned • u/ICanStopTheRain • 8h ago

TIL that the Catholic Church runs a secretive facility outside St. Louis, Missouri where it sends abusive priests. At its peak, it operated 23 such facilities around the world.

en.wikipedia.org

4.3k Upvotes

175 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Cultural_Magician105 • 15h ago

TIL That in 2007 a 53 year old woman died from a stroke and four people recieved kidneys, lungs and liver transplants from her. All four of them developed breast cancer, with three of them dying from it. The donor had breast cancer that hadn't been found at the time of her death.

cnn.com

39.8k Upvotes

699 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ExtremeInsert • 14h ago

TIL that as a child star, Jackie Coogan earned up to $4m (equivalent to around $91m today) but by age 21, he found most of it had been spent by his mother and stepfather. He sued in 1938 and received only $126,000. This case resulted in the 1939 enactment of the California Child Actor's Bill.

dannydutch.com

5.9k Upvotes

88 comments

r/todayilearned • u/funkyflowergirlca • 6h ago

TIL Napoleon Hill, who wrote Think and Grow Rich, was a lifelong scammer. He lied about meeting Andrew Carnegie, never advised any presidents, and even inspired a cult that tried to raise an immortal baby. His whole career was built on fake stories, fraud, and constant reinvention.

gizmodo.com

874 Upvotes

70 comments

r/todayilearned • u/T-Rex-Hunter • 12h ago

TIL, that the least common birthday is the 25th of December and that in fact of the top ten least common birthdays are all days that holidays land on.

zippia.com

2.5k Upvotes

274 comments

r/todayilearned • u/sanandrios • 12h ago

TIL the Eiffel Tοwer was a temporary gimmick for the 1889 World Fair that was never dismantled. Its sparkling lights were also supposed to be a gimmick to ring in New Year 2000, but have stayed on.

en.wikipedia.org

2.3k Upvotes

88 comments

r/todayilearned • u/No-Community- • 17h ago

TIL that Elizabeth Taylor was deliberately late to her own funeral

cbsnews.com

5.5k Upvotes

44 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 15h ago

TIL in 2010 Bill Murray & members of the Wu-Tang Clan were hanging out at SXSW when they entered the packed Shangri-La bar together, whereupon Murray spontaneously decided to hop over the bar & become a surprise temporary bartender who served generous tequila shots regardless of what patrons ordered

theguardian.com

4.2k Upvotes

242 comments

r/todayilearned • u/1998199888 • 18h ago

TIL about Delusional parasitosis, sometimes referred to as phantom infestation, is a psychological disorder in which an individual mistakenly believes their body is overrun by living or inanimate entities. Typical examples of these perceived invaders include bugs, worms, or microbes.

en.wikipedia.org

4.7k Upvotes

161 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Shamus_Aran • 9h ago

TIL Roald Dahl published a short story called "The Great Automatic Grammatizator" about a machine that can automatically produce award-winning books. It ends with the author praying for the strength to "let our children starve" rather than sign over his work to be used in the machine.

en.wikipedia.org

750 Upvotes

13 comments

r/todayilearned • u/rosstedfordkendall • 20h ago

TIL beaver dams saved a wetland in the Czech Republic. The government was planning to do the same thing, but the bureaucracy took too long. The dams saved $1.2 million.

en.wikipedia.org

4.6k Upvotes

45 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RaccoonDoor • 1d ago

TIL Thailand declared war on the United States in 1942. However, the Thai ambassador to the United States refused to deliver the war declaration. As a result, the US simply ignored Thailand's declaration of war.

en.wikipedia.org

23.4k Upvotes

240 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Spykryo • 17h ago

TIL that veteran astronaut John Young's heart rate when launching on top of the Saturn V was only 70 bpm, the normal resting heart rate; meanwhile, his rookie crewmate's heart rate was 144 bpm, more than double. Young later said his heart "was too old for it to go any faster".

spaceflightnow.com

2.2k Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/slurpdwnawienperhaps • 9h ago

TIL the oldest person to receive their doctorate is attributed to Ingeborg Rapoport. She was 102 years old when she received her medical doctorate from the University of Hamburg in 201 5. She was denied a medical degree 70+ years earlier because her mother was of Jewish descent.

wikipedia.org

515 Upvotes

2 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ainsley-Sorsby • 47m ago

TIL When Savonarola, a fanatic friar, took control of Florence he harshly persecuted homosexuality. After his reign ended, people were eager to return to enjoying all the things he banned: one government official attending the friar's execution was quoted saying "thank God we can sodomise again!"

warwick.ac.uk

• Upvotes

7 comments

r/todayilearned • u/blankblank • 10h ago

TIL that the rate at which new words are added to languages has slowed in the digital era, and it's partly because the advent of automatic spell-checkers has given words recognized by these tools a "reproductive fitness" advantage, while non-standard spellings decline.

nature.com

455 Upvotes

37 comments

r/todayilearned • u/1998199888 • 3h ago

TIL about Fregoli delusion a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that different people are in fact a single person who changes appearance or is in disguise.

en.wikipedia.org

145 Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CrashRiot • 6h ago

TIL that Bethesda bought the Fallout IP for just 5.75 million dollars.

gamedeveloper.com

189 Upvotes

30 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AhmedMostafa16 • 22h ago

TIL that in 18th century England, people would pay to attend Bedlam, a private lunatic asylum, to watch the mentally ill as entertainment

retrospectjournal.com

3.4k Upvotes

258 comments

r/todayilearned • u/onwhatcharges • 2h ago

TIL that Alberta King, Martin Luther King Jr's mother was shot and killed while playing the organ at a church service. Her killer was sentenced to death, however, the King family—consistent in their commitment to nonviolence—successfully campaigned to have his sentence commuted to life in prison.

dannydutch.com

80 Upvotes

0 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GeoJono • 17h ago

TIL that the last U.S. President who was neither a Democrat nor a Republican was Millard Fillmore, the final Whig Party President, who served in the executive office from July 1850 to March 1853.

buffaloah.com

1.2k Upvotes

39 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ainsley-Sorsby • 1d ago

TIL Part of N.Machiavelli's diplomatic mission to Cesare Borgia included sending intel back to his government, even down to Borgia's personal habits. He noticed that he had inhuman energy and could go several nights working sleepless but occasionaly would "fall to his bed" and refuse to see anyone

en.wikipedia.org

9.3k Upvotes

130 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Capital_Tailor_7348 • 15h ago

Til that Nicholas Trist the amassador sent to negotiate the end to the Mexican American war was fired from his post by president Polk. Trist responded by ignoring Polk’s order to return to the US and continued to negotiate the end of the war with Mexico.

wikipedia.org

641 Upvotes

21 comments

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