r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 5h ago

TIL in feudal England, tenants paid quit rent to free themselves from performing obligations required under feudal tenure. As the British Empire expanded, so did the practice. In colonial America, it was used to administer land and collect revenue.

en.wikipedia.org

96 Upvotes

0 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 6h ago

TIL that before the Black Death in Europe, there was the Plague of Justinian. The plague weakened the Byzantine Empire's economy and caused the empire's decline.

en.wikipedia.org

411 Upvotes

36 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DrakeSavory • 7h ago

TIL that the Battle of Big Dry Wash was the last major battle of the Apache War and 4 soldiers earned the Medal of Honor as a result of their actions during the battle.

en.wikipedia.org

91 Upvotes

19 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 7h ago

TIL that in 2020, Justin Montney lost his fiancée, Alexis-Athena Wyatt, in a car crash. When he attempted to get a refund from the photography company he had hired for their wedding, they not only refused but released a statement mocking him.

people.com

15.3k Upvotes

930 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TapFar687 • 7h ago

TIL of The Law School of Berytus (also known as the law school of Beirut), a center for the study of Roman law in classical antiquity. It flourished under the patronage of the Roman emperors and functioned as the Roman Empire's center of jurisprudence until its destruction in AD 551.

en.wikipedia.org

132 Upvotes

13 comments

r/todayilearned • u/thebigchil73 • 8h ago

TIL that the ‘high’ from gambling isn’t connected to winning - the dopamine rush peaks at exactly 50:50 probability. Gamblers get a rush when the roulette wheel is spinning but their pleasure is largely unaffected whether they win or lose.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

4.2k Upvotes

293 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RainyWanderlust • 8h ago

TIL about the “blob” slime mould. It has almost 720 sexes, can heal itself, and has no brain, but is able to transmit knowledge if merged with another blob.

abc.net.au

8.5k Upvotes

444 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Skaterose6 • 10h ago

TIL Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has a well-known game-day superstition where he wears the same pair of red underwear for every game of his NFL career.

espn.com

1.5k Upvotes

211 comments

r/todayilearned • u/kevlarbuns • 12h ago

TIL member of the Donner Party, Lewis Keseberg, was accused of killing and consuming multiple, including children, by the rescue party. He was found with the corpse of Tamsen Donner, and had hidden her remaining money. He later sued for defamation, insisting he only ate those who died of exposure.

en.wikipedia.org

5.6k Upvotes

346 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NBrief • 13h ago

TIL Before becoming a country-pop star, Shania Twain performed in a Las Vegas-style show at an Ontario resort, where a music industry lawyer noticed her talent and helped get her demo to Nashville.

nmc.emuseum.com

308 Upvotes

17 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 13h ago

TIL that the actor Leslie Howard, most famous for playing Ashley Wilkes in "Gone With The Wind" was killed in a plane crash in WWII when his civilian aircraft BOAC Flight 777 was shot down by German aircraft, killing everyone aboard.

en.wikipedia.org

453 Upvotes

29 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PinkiePie___ • 13h ago

TIL John Paul Jones was a war hero active in both US and Russian Navies. He was accused of being a pirate and raping a 10 years old girl. He rejected the rape accusation but claimed instead that he's been often paying her for sex.

en.wikipedia.org

0 Upvotes

9 comments

r/todayilearned • u/chirpchirphoot • 14h ago

TIL that the Ethiopian-Adal war was a war fought between the Ethiopian Empire and the Adal Sultanate (In modern day Somalia), which saw some of the earliest use of firearms between two Subsaharan African nations. The Ethiopians were backed by the Portuguese and the Adalites by the Ottomans.

en.wikipedia.org

107 Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/an_aficionado • 14h ago

TIL that ancient Greek and Latin texts were often written without spaces between words. This style of writing, known as scriptio continua, meant that a sentence could look likeone long stringofletters, and readers had to figure out where each word began and ended.

en.wikipedia.org

2.5k Upvotes

285 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MississippiJoel • 15h ago

TIL the youngest pope was also the only one to serve more than once. Pope Benedict IX, the nephew of two other popes, was elected at 20 because of a bribery scheme, was deposed, returned to reclaim the papacy, abdicated to marry his cousin, returned again, and was deposed again to die in obscurity.

en.wikipedia.org

500 Upvotes

17 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PeasantLich • 16h ago

TIL that Checkers has been a solved game for almost 20 years. Optimal play is unbeatable, and two opponents playing optimally always reach a stalemate.

researchgate.net

28.7k Upvotes

1.4k comments

r/todayilearned • u/AetheriaNox • 16h ago

TIL the oldest surviving liquid wine in the world was discovered in a first-century Roman glass urn containing intact wine. The urn was discovered in 2019 in Spain.

en.wikipedia.org

1.4k Upvotes

67 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MajesticBread9147 • 16h ago

TIL Director Doris Wishman's film Nude on the Moon was banned in New York after the New York State Censorship Board determined that movies about nudist colonies on earth were permissible, but nudist colonies on the moon were not.

en.wikipedia.org

1.3k Upvotes

18 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Carboncopy99 • 16h ago

TIL in 1384 a woman was crowned the King of Poland. Historian Robert W. Knoll suggests that Jadwiga of Poland was made king to ensure her future husband could not automatically become king without the Polish nobles’ consent.

en.wikipedia.org

589 Upvotes

18 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tipputappi • 17h ago

TIL about Edenton Tea Party held in Edenton , NC. It was one of the first protests organized by women in US

en.wikipedia.org

92 Upvotes

1 comment

r/todayilearned • u/Obversa • 17h ago

TIL that King George III originally planned to abdicate the throne in favor of his eldest son - the future King George IV - and exile himself to Hanover in March 1783 after Great Britain lost the American colonies in the Revolutionary War. However, he remained on the throne until his death in 1820.

thecrownchronicles.co.uk

2.4k Upvotes

108 comments

r/todayilearned • u/finza_prey • 17h ago

TIL After the "Fight Of The Century" Muhammad Ali refused to admit defeat and sought to define the outcome in the publics mind as a "White Man's Decision". Ali later on defeated Frazier in their third and final bout at the Thrilla in Manilia in 1975

en.wikipedia.org

4.2k Upvotes

321 comments

r/todayilearned • u/leafpool2014 • 18h ago

TIL that in WW2, Poland declared war on Japan. Japan rejected there declaration of war. Quote: “We do not accept Poland’s challenge. The Poles, fighting for their freedom, only declared war on us under pressure from the United Kingdom.”A curious case: Poland only declared war on one country in WWII;

outono.net

5.5k Upvotes

257 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Keobooks • 21h ago

TIL: Roosevelt is on the dime because he founded the March of Dimes foundation for polio research

en.wikipedia.org

10.0k Upvotes

181 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Dash795 • 21h ago

TIL that PA allows an addicted gambler to file a self-exclusion so that person can’t enter a PA casino for up to five years (can’t cancel it) and if you violate the voluntary self-exclusion after filing (by relapsing and gong to a PA casino) then you can be charged with criminal trespass.

responsibleplay.pa.gov

2.8k Upvotes

280 comments

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