Today I Learned (TIL)

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Ainsley-Sorsby on 2025-07-30 18:26:12+00:00.

Original Title: TIL The plot of "Mostellaria", a comedy by early roman playright Plautus, follows a young man who goes wild after his father leaves on a business trip: he spends all of his money, trashes the house while throwing a party and invents a ghost story as a cover up when his father abruptly returns

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/carrot-man on 2025-07-30 17:38:18+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ShinyHeadedCook on 2025-07-30 17:16:10+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/GeoColo on 2025-07-30 17:13:13+00:00.

Original Title: TIL in 1977, a Soviet nuclear reactor aboard the Kosmos 954 satellite malfunctioned and fell from orbit, scattering radioactive debris across northern Canada. The cleanup cost millions of dollars, most of which the USSR refused to pay.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/johnsmithoncemore on 2025-07-30 17:18:28+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Narase33 on 2025-07-30 16:17:22+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Objective_Horror1113 on 2025-07-30 15:16:12+00:00.

Original Title: TIL Nikola Tesla believed he received extraterrestrial signals in 1899 during experiments in Colorado. In 1901 he wrote he may have heard “the greeting of one planet to another” and thought the signals came from Mars long before radio astronomy existed.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/BaconReceptacle on 2025-07-30 14:46:43+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/CupidStunt13 on 2025-07-30 14:37:28+00:00.

Original Title: TIL The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams and comedian Stephen Fry purchased the first three original Apple Macintosh computers available in Europe. It started a lifelong friendship

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/SantaCruzPirate on 2025-07-30 13:56:15+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/MichiganCarNut on 2025-07-30 13:41:16+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/NYstate on 2025-07-30 13:18:59+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that in the first The Terminator movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger only has 17 lines which breaks down to a mere 58 words. With the $75,000 that Schwarzenegger reportedly got paid for the movie, that works out to about $1293 per word.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Not_so_ghetto on 2025-07-30 12:48:22+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/HG_Shurtugal on 2025-07-30 12:27:34+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/SquareThings on 2025-07-30 11:59:50+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/res30stupid on 2025-07-30 10:27:17+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 on 2025-07-30 10:22:41+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that it wasn’t until 30 July 1956 that “In God We Trust” became the official U.S. motto. President Dwight Eisenhower signed a law passed by the 84th Congress, replacing “E Pluribus Unum” (Latin: “Out of many, one”), which has appeared on the Great Seal of the United States since 1782.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/explaingo on 2025-07-30 09:15:50+00:00.

Original Title: TIL in 2013, reporters dropped 192 wallets across 16 major cities to test honesty. Helsinki, Finland topped the list with 11/12 wallets returned, while Lisbon, Portugal ranked lowest: only 1 out of 12 wallets was returned

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/thecashblaster on 2025-07-30 02:08:41+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/mpocFr on 2025-07-30 06:37:17+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that ancient Greeks believed sneezing after sex could prevent pregnancy. The Greek physician Soranus of Ephesus declared in the 2nd century CE that women should hold their breath during sex, and sneeze afterwards to expel the semen.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/CityRulesFootball on 2025-07-30 06:07:16+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that King Umberto I of Italy was eating in a restaurant when he noticed the owner was a near-exact physical double. It emerged that both were born on the same day, in the same town, and had married women with the same name. Umberto was shot dead on the day he learned the restaurateur was killed.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/WinkWriggle on 2025-07-30 03:50:41+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/summitseeker91 on 2025-07-30 03:12:47+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that bananas are naturally radioactive due to potassium-40, and the small radiation they emit is so well-known that scientists use the "banana equivalent dose" as unit to explain everyday radiation exposure. Looks like bananas are used for scale in more than one way!

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/SibyllaAzarica on 2025-07-30 02:54:24+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that "bile" bears are kept continuously in "crush cages" for years so bile can be surgically harvested. Some are caught as cubs and remain caged, without being able to stand, sit up or turn around, for 30 years. A significant proportion die due to stress, unskilled surgery or infection.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Alternative-Neck-705 on 2025-07-30 01:46:38+00:00.