Today I Learned (TIL)

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/GreasyPeter on 2025-08-05 15:48:20+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/w8sting_time on 2025-08-05 15:06:46+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/AudibleNod on 2025-08-05 13:25:51+00:00.

Original Title: TIL the United States operated a nuclear reactor in Antarctica to reduce the need for fossil fuels. It operated for less than 10 years and its large crew, clean up costs and unreliability led to its early decommissioning.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Morella1989 on 2025-08-05 12:41:17+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695) was a Mexican nun, writer, philosopher, composer, and poet nicknamed “The Tenth Muse” and “The Mexican Phoenix.” She corresponded with Isaac Newton, studied science, and is considered one of the most important female writers in Mexican literature.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/thearchivalvenerable on 2025-08-05 06:15:30+00:00.

Original Title: TIL about Henry Wickham, the English "bio-pirate" who broke Brazil's global rubber monopoly in 1876 by smuggling 70,000 seeds to London. He lied to customs, and the resulting Asian plantations crashed the Brazilian economy.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/SPXQuantAlgo on 2025-08-05 13:29:23+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/sickeningly-cringe on 2025-08-05 11:55:34+00:00.

Original Title: TIL Grigori Perelman was offered the Fields Medal in 2006 and the Millennium Prize of 1 million dollars in 2010 for his contribution in solving the Poincaré Conjecture, an open problem in mathematics for a century. He rejected both of them.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Neat-Shelter-8612 on 2025-08-05 10:46:14+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Ill_Definition8074 on 2025-08-05 10:02:09+00:00.

Original Title: TIL In 1338, Scottish countess Agnes of Dunbar led the successful defense of Dunbar Castle during a 5-month siege by a much larger English army. At one point, they threatened to kill her captured brother if she didn't surrender. She replied that his death would only benefit her as she was his heir.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Eierjupp on 2025-08-05 08:01:03+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/beerbellybegone on 2025-08-05 06:31:09+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/OutrageousTerm7140 on 2025-08-05 02:27:55+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Joseph Guillotin, the namesake for the infamous guillotine, actually opposed capital punishment entirely but felt he wouldn't garner enough support to do away with it entirely. He advocated for the guillotine because it was more humane than many alternative execution methods.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/South_Gas626 on 2025-08-05 01:41:36+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Pierce Brosnan was not allowed to wear a tuxedo in other films while he was under contract for the James Bond franchise. This is partially why he shows up to a black-and-white ball with an unbuttoned dress shirt and untied bow in The Thomas Crown Affair (1999).

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ocs_sco on 2025-08-04 23:59:42+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Brazil in the 30s burned the equivalent of 3 times the annual worldwide consumption of coffee. They chose to burn it instead of selling it cheaply, and managed to cause the price of coffee to rise after the Great Depression. It remains one of the largest supply destructions in history.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/boopboopadoopity on 2025-08-04 23:43:59+00:00.

Original Title: TIL because North Dakota is often the last stop for people visiting all 50 US states, they have a "Best for Last" Club - if you advise it's the last stop on your journey, you get a commemorative t-shirt and certificate (they clap for you too!) for saving the "Best for Last"

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/zahrul3 on 2025-08-05 03:26:16+00:00.

Original Title: TIL: Someone at the National Health Service in England sent a test email to 840000 colleagues and another replied all, resulting in one of the largest reply all storms. 168 million emails were sent between people and caused the health system to be down for half a day.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Sharp_Simple_2764 on 2025-08-04 23:04:45+00:00.

Original Title: TIL: About Kazimierz Leski. a Polish intelligence office who during World War II, made at least 25 journeys across German-held Europe, usually in the uniform of a Wehrmacht Major General, to intercept military secrets. He was never caught by the Germans

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Morella1989 on 2025-08-04 21:44:57+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that In the 1940s–50s, Canada ran nutrition experiments on over 1,300 Indigenous people, including 1,000 children in residential schools and remote communities, deliberately malnourishing many to study vitamins. Historian Ian Mosby exposed the abuses in 2013.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/haddock420 on 2025-08-04 22:32:31+00:00.

Original Title: TIL Metallica planned to call their first album Metal Up Your Ass, with the album cover being a hand coming through a toilet bowl holding a machete dripping with blood. The distributors heavily objected to the name and their record label didn't allow them to use it.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Morella1989 on 2025-08-05 00:14:02+00:00.

Original Title: TIL about Constance Fisher (1929–1973), a woman with schizophrenia who killed three of her children in 1954. After years in an institution, she was released, then killed three more children in 1966. Deemed unfit for trial, she was hospitalized, escaped in 1973, and died soon after in an accident.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/tyrion2024 on 2025-08-04 20:09:17+00:00.

Original Title: TIL a man died after throwing a hand grenade at his ex-gf's house when she refused to reconcile. He first tried to stab her with scissors, but others intervened. He then threw the grenade, but it didn't explode until he picked it up to re-throw, which killed him & injured four. His ex was not harmed

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/TylerFortier_Photo on 2025-08-04 20:00:36+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/rampantradius on 2025-08-04 19:34:06+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Abu Zayd al-Balkhi (850–934 CE), a Persian scholar, rejected the idea that mental illness was caused by demons or supernatural forces. He recognized conditions like depression and anxiety and argued they had natural psychological and physical causes, centuries ahead of modern psychiatry.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/kxnsqxz on 2025-08-04 17:57:08+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/South_Gas626 on 2025-08-04 18:16:15+00:00.

Original Title: TIL the late actor Roddy McDowall was raided by the FBI in 1974 for owning hundreds of illegal film prints. To avoid being criminally charged himself, he ratted out other celebrities who had purchased films from bootleggers.