r/todayilearned • u/Ok-Perception7624 • 3h ago

TIL the domestic silk moth (Bombyx mori) does not exist in the wild. After 5,000 years of selective breeding it can no longer fly, has lost its camouflage pigments, and the males need human help to find a mate. It is entirely dependent on humans to survive.

en.wikipedia.org

4.9k Upvotes

217 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Frosty-Bit4667 • 5h ago

TIL the iconic guitar tone on Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" was a complete accident caused by a microphone pointing at the floor, and audio engineers still can't perfectly replicate it.

soundonsound.com

5.5k Upvotes

331 comments

r/todayilearned • u/lamest-liz • 11h ago

TIL that the genes that allowed people to survive the Black Death (ERAP2) now is suspected to cause autoimmune disease in modern humans such as Crohn’s Disease.

nih.gov

18.2k Upvotes

410 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Mahruta • 12h ago

TIL Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Roman history, had a net worth equal to the entire annual budget of the Roman Empire.

theguardian.com

14.8k Upvotes

685 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 13h ago

TIL When there is only a small speck of mold on bread, it is not safe to just cut around it and eat the rest because the root of the mold has already deeply penetrated the entire bread. Mold in small amounts may not harm some people, but it can make others sick

foodandwine.com

7.8k Upvotes

541 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Icefox119 • 9h ago

TIL that mosquito-borne illnesses have killed about half of the people that ever lived. The general consensus of demographers is that about 108 billion human beings have ever lived, and that mosquito-borne diseases have killed close to half: 52 billion people, the majority of them young children.

macleans.ca

2.9k Upvotes

98 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Proboi_99 • 1h ago

TIL that Vladimir Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, adopting 'Lenin' as a revolutionary alias somewhere in 1901 and 1902 (often believed to be a reference to the Lena River in Siberia, though some historians suggest it was inspired by a woman named Elena).

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

44 comments

r/todayilearned • u/reasonablejim2000 • 14h ago

TIL in 1968 four submarines went missing within 6 months of each other. All four wrecks were eventually located but no root cause for any of the sinkings has ever been established.

thedebrief.org

5.3k Upvotes

345 comments

r/todayilearned • u/No_Expert4176 • 1h ago

TIL a 2026 study discovered that apes can play pretend, after researchers observed a bonobo hosting an "imaginary tea party."

smithsonianmag.com

• Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Gnomeslikeprofit • 14h ago

TIL that there is no federal law directly establishing a national drinking age. Instead, every U.S. state has set its drinking age at 21, largely because of federal highway funding incentives. However, some U.S. territories, such as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, have a drinking age of 18.

en.wikipedia.org

3.6k Upvotes

300 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Oppor_Tuna_Tea • 14h ago

TIL that in 1856, an American mercenary named William Walker invaded Nicaragua with a private army, captured the government, and successfully declared himself President of the country before being defeated and executed.

masshist.org

2.8k Upvotes

79 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 8h ago

TIL 54% of surgical amputations are caused by vascular diseases and conditions that affect blood flow, such as diabetes. Traumatic injury accounts for about 45% of all amputations

hopkinsmedicine.org

629 Upvotes

28 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Electronic_Cause_796 • 23h ago

TIL that in 1695, English pirate Henry Every captured the Mughal treasure ship Ganj-i-Sawai, looting wealth worth about £108 million today. The raid nearly sparked a diplomatic crisis between England and the Mughal Empire. A £500 bounty was offered for Every, but he vanished without a trace.

en.wikipedia.org

13.6k Upvotes

378 comments

r/todayilearned • u/HelpMeGamer • 23h ago

TIL though rumored to have dipped his bread in the blood of his impaled enemies, Vlad Dracula, aka Vlad the Impaler, may have been a vegetarian. Expert analysis of Vlad's letters, blood, sweat, and saliva found a complete absence of animal food proteins.

menshealth.com

7.7k Upvotes

275 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ConsumingFire1689 • 1h ago

TIL the theme song for the Bond film Goldeneye, while famously performed by Tina Turner, was written by Bono and The Edge of the band U2

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

21 comments

r/todayilearned • u/WHULeaf • 21m ago

TIL that the football penalty kick was invented in County Armagh, Ireland, in 1890 by a goalkeeper named William McCrum. He proposed it to stop defenders from cynically tackling attackers near the goal line, the English FA rejected it as an insult, arguing that "gentlemen" would never cheat

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

24 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ill_Definition8074 • 7h ago

TIL Author Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) spent years writing a true crime book called The Reverend that's still unreleased. It's about Willie Maxwell, an Alabama preacher and suspected serial killer who was murdered in 1977 by a relative of one of his suspected victims.

theguardian.com

275 Upvotes

4 comments

r/todayilearned • u/befarked247 • 9h ago

TIL The first International cricket match was between the US and Canada in 1844. The match played at St George Cricket Club in NY. However, baseball overtook Crickets popularity in the US during the civil war, as soldiers who had played took it back to their home towns.

en.wikipedia.org

232 Upvotes

30 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Firenze30 • 22h ago

TIL the visual effects team behind Interstellar developed a new renderer to simulate light around a spinning black hole, and the techniques they created were later published in a peer-reviewed physics journal.

ioppublishing.org

2.5k Upvotes

62 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ValhallaAir • 8h ago

TIL 6 separate companies have MLB streaming rights

sportsvideo.org

179 Upvotes

39 comments

r/todayilearned • u/leafpool2014 • 1d ago

TIL that in 16th-century France, a community put rats on trial for destroying crops. The assigned defense lawyer successfully delayed the case by arguing that his clients could not safely make the journey to the courthouse because local cats were plotting their murder.

en.wikipedia.org

5.0k Upvotes

76 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FFSoldier57 • 18h ago

TIL that after a man attempted to steal the Crown Jewels, King Charles II of England not only spared him, but gave him a pension of 500 a year.

historic-uk.com

908 Upvotes

87 comments

r/todayilearned • u/guy_rocco • 1d ago

TIL that Lionel Messi was diagnosed with Growth Hormone Deficiency (GHD) at age 11 and required daily Human Growth Hormone (HGH) injections until he was 14 just to reach an average height.

journeys.dartmouth.edu

28.5k Upvotes

1.6k comments

r/todayilearned • u/SaltBae63 • 17h ago

TIL: Scientists Discovered Two Marsupial Species Thought Extinct for 6,000 Years

journals.australian.museum

390 Upvotes

22 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 1d ago

TIL A study determined the Roman-British population from c. 200-400 AD appears to have had far less gum disease than humans today. Only 5% of skulls showed signs of gum disease, compared to 15-30% of modern adults

bitemagazine.com.au

5.0k Upvotes

230 comments

Subreddit

Posts

Wiki

Today I Learned (TIL)

r/todayilearned

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today? Submit interesting and specific facts about something that you just found out here.

Members Active

41.5m

Sidebar

New to reddit? Click here!

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?
Submit interesting and specific facts that you just found out (not broad information you looked up, TodayILearned is not /r/wikipedia).

Posting rules

Submissions must be verifiable. Please link directly to a reliable source that supports every claim in your post title. Images alone do not count as valid references. Videos are fine so long as they come from reputable sources (e.g. BBC, Discovery, etc).
No personal opinions, anecdotes or subjective statements (e.g "TIL xyz is a great movie").
No recent sources. Any sources (blog, article, press release, video, etc.) with a publication date more recent than two months are not allowed.
No politics, soapboxing, or agenda based submissions. This includes (but is not limited to) submissions related to:
1. Recent political issues and politicians
2. Social and economic issues (including race/religion/gender)
3. Environmental issues
4. Police misconduct
No misleading claims. Posts that omit essential information, or present unrelated facts in a way that suggest a connection will be removed.
Rephrase your post title if the following are not met:
1. Titles must begin with "TIL ..."
2. Make them descriptive, concise and specific (e.g. not "TIL something interesting about bacon").
3. Titles must be able to stand on their own without requiring readers to click on a link. Starting your title with a why/what/who/where/how modifier should be unnecessary.
4. "TIL about ..." and other broad posts don't belong on TIL. Try /r/Wikipedia, etc. instead, or be more specific (and avoid the word "about").
5. "TIL how to ..." posts belong on /r/HowTo.
6. "TIL the definition of a word..." Word definitions/translations/origins are not appropriate here
No submissions related to the usage, existence or features of specific software/websites (e.g. "TIL you can click on widgets in WidgetMaker 1.22").
All NSFW links must be tagged (including comments).

Please see the wiki for more detailed explanations of the rules, as well as additional rules that may not be listed here

(Why we need rules)

Additional info

If your post does not appear in the new queue and you think it meets the above rules, please contact the moderators (include a link to your reddit.com post, not your story).
Please report spam, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate posts by messaging the moderators, as this helps us remove them more promptly!
More information available on the TIL FAQ and wiki.

Frequent TILs Repost List

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.

Etiquette

We ask that you please do the following:

avoid mobile versions of websites (e.g. m.wikipedia.org)
link to the appropriate heading when referencing an article (particularly on Wikipedia)
link to the appropriate start time when referencing videos (e.g. on YouTube)
add [PDF] or [NSFW] tags to your posts, as necessary.
Please avoid reposting TILs that have already made the front page in the past

Please also read the site-wide Reddiquette.

You are loved.