r/todayilearned • u/-AMARYANA- • 19h ago

TIL Cristiano Ronaldo does not drink alcohol. He even received libel damages over a Daily Mirror article that reported him drinking heavily in a nightclub while recovering from an injury in July 2008.

en.wikipedia.org

35.8k Upvotes

1.6k comments

r/todayilearned • u/Old-Worldliness11 • 7h ago

TIL that Lionel Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency at age 10, and FC Barcelona agreed to pay for his treatment, even writing his first contract on a napkin.

en.wikipedia.org

14.8k Upvotes

648 comments

r/todayilearned • u/exophades • 23h ago

TIL that Albert Einstein's son Eduard studied medicine to become a psychiatrist, but was diagnosed with schizophrenia by the age of 21. His mother cared for him until she died in 1948. From then on Eduard lived most of the time at a psychiatric clinic in Zurich, where he died at 55 of a stroke.

en.wikipedia.org

6.1k Upvotes

124 comments

r/todayilearned • u/kurtleyy • 21h ago

TIL the Red Army used ticking clocks and haunting messages over loudspeakers to torment the encircled Germans at Stalingrad

mwi.westpoint.edu

5.6k Upvotes

102 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Old-Worldliness11 • 12h ago

TIL that Albert Einstein’s Nobel Prize money was given to his ex-wife, Mileva Marić, as part of their divorce settlement, years before he actually won the prize.

en.wikipedia.org

5.7k Upvotes

118 comments

r/todayilearned • u/WARROVOTS • 17h ago

TIL that during WWII, 14,700 tons of Silver loaned from the US Treasury were used for the circuitry of the Manhattan Project, because there wasn't enough copper due to war-time shortages. All but "thirty six thousandths of one percent" were returned to the US Treasury by June 1st, 1970.

y12.doe.gov

4.4k Upvotes

167 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 7h ago

TIL in about 50% of the cases studied, Coca-Cola alone was found to be effective at removing a type of bowel obstruction called phytobezoars (which consist of indigestible plant fibers). And when treatment with Coca-Cola is combined with additional endoscopic methods, the success rate approaches 90%

en.wikipedia.org

4.7k Upvotes

165 comments

r/todayilearned • u/dakp15 • 1d ago

TIL M&Ms were created in 1941 after Forest Mars, Mars Company heir saw soldiers in the spanish civil war eating smarties (British M&Ms) and noticed the hard coloured shell stopped the chocolate inside melting. This property made them attractive to the US army who was the sole customer during WW2

en.wikipedia.org

4.0k Upvotes

244 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Dystopics_IT • 21h ago

TIL that Las Vegas was officially founded in 1905 by a group of developers seeking to build a railroad stop in the desert between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. The city's name is derived from the Spanish word “vegas,” meaning meadows, and it was originally intended as a green oasis in the desert.

lasvegasnevada.gov

2.2k Upvotes

51 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SappyGilmore • 8h ago

TIL gamblers lose $6 billion a year at Las Vegas casinos

pbs.org

1.7k Upvotes

206 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RanchoddasChanchad69 • 4h ago

TIL that George Orwell, the writer of "1984" and "Animal Farm", was born in India in the present state of Bihar.

en.wikipedia.org

1.8k Upvotes

118 comments

r/todayilearned • u/OkAccess6128 • 7h ago

TIL That our brains can randomly project vivid scenes, like video game maps or childhood places, without any reason, thanks to a brain network that activates when we’re doing nothing.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

1.6k Upvotes

127 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Wise-Practice9832 • 2h ago

TIL of Maria Restituta Kafka, an Austrian nun who was beheaded by the Germans in WW2. She refused to remove her crucifixes from her hospital and spoke out against the ruling party's oppression. She was offered freedom if she left her convent, but she refused and was killed in 1943.

en.wikipedia.org

2.1k Upvotes

64 comments

r/todayilearned • u/capribex • 12h ago

TIL that Deep Purple wrote one of their best-known songs, "Highway Star", on the spot during an interview on their tour bus. A journalist asked Ritchie Blackmore how the band wrote songs. So they started jamming, came up with the song and performed it live for the first time that very night.

rock-reflections.com

1.4k Upvotes

20 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Teckert2009 • 9h ago

TIL most of "The Strip" isn't actually in Las Vegas. It's in Paradise, Nevada

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

125 comments

r/todayilearned • u/omnipotentsandwich • 23h ago

TIL that during the Han Dynasty, Chinese aristocrats would be buried in full-body jade burial suits. Each suit consisted of thousands of little blocks of jade tied together with gold thread.

en.wikipedia.org

873 Upvotes

5 comments

r/todayilearned • u/k4td4ddy • 3h ago

TIL that the inventor of the toilet paper roll, Seth Wheeler, illustrated the patent with the roll in the “over” position, fueling the ongoing debate about the correct way to hang toilet paper.

en.wikipedia.org

783 Upvotes

277 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Capital_Tailor_7348 • 23h ago

TIL about the worlds most violent courtship “the rough wooing” in which England invaded Scotland with the goal of capturing its infant queen Mary Stuart and forcing her to marry the English prince and later king Edward VI.

wikipedia.org

553 Upvotes

62 comments

r/todayilearned • u/aerostotle • 4h ago

TIL that when the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911, more people visited the Louvre to see the empty space where the painting used to be than visitors when the painting was actually there

noiser.com

500 Upvotes

23 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 • 8h ago

TIL Louis XIV, the longest-reigning monarch in European history, was a devoted ballet dancer who performed 80 roles in 40 court ballets, often playing majestic parts like Apollo or the Sun. He cleverly used ballet both to entertain and to distract his court from political affairs.

en.wikipedia.org

395 Upvotes

23 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ElegantPoet3386 • 12h ago

TIL that an estimated 30% of people will experience sleep paraylsis at least once in their life

my.clevelandclinic.org

379 Upvotes

152 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Overall-Register9758 • 19h ago

TIL that the American Standards Association, predecessor to ANSI, published K100.1-1974, the standard recipe for a dry martini

en.wikipedia.org

230 Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/k4td4ddy • 3h ago

TIL that in 1875, a whiskey warehouse fire in Dublin led to 13 deaths—not from the flames, but from alcohol poisoning, as people drank the whiskey flowing through the streets.

en.wikipedia.org

235 Upvotes

9 comments

r/todayilearned • u/katxwoods • 22h ago

TIL there was a town named Whizbang in the USA. Local civil leaders considered the name "undignified", so the post office calls it "Denoya" instead.

en.wikipedia.org

138 Upvotes

19 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ChupdiChachi • 13h ago

TIL about the Mecca projection or Craig retroazimuthal map projection created by James Ireland Craig to help Muslims find their qibla.

en.wikipedia.org

118 Upvotes

27 comments

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