Today I Learned (TIL)

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/alottanamesweretaken on 2025-02-28 20:31:45.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/UndyingCorn on 2025-02-28 20:20:04.

Original Title: TIL The British project to develop atomic bombs, known as High Explosive Research (HER), was a civil project, not a military one. Staff were drawn from and recruited into the Civil Service, and were paid Civil Service salaries.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Rio91940 on 2025-02-28 19:23:19.

Original Title: TIL that Abebe Bikila won the marathon at the 1960 Rome Olympics running barefoot, after failing to find shoes that fit him properly. He not only set a world record but also became the first Black African athlete to win an Olympic gold medal.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/skibblez_n_zits on 2025-02-28 19:21:39.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/UndyingCorn on 2025-02-28 19:16:44.

Original Title: TIL The Thalweg principle is the legal principle that if the boundary between two political entities is stated to be a waterway without further description (e.g. right bank, eastern shore, low-tide line, etc.), the boundary follows the thalweg, the line of lowest elevation, of that watercourse.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Flares117 on 2025-02-28 19:11:41.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/tyrion2024 on 2025-02-28 18:28:22.

Original Title: TIL in the 1340s Oxford had an estimated murder rate of roughly 110 murders per 100,000 people, and in the 14th-century, London's murder rate varied between 36-52 per 100,000 people. By comparison, the 2020 murder rate for Britain was around 1 per 100,000 people.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Nicolas-matteo on 2025-02-28 18:27:08.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/pakedbotatoes on 2025-02-28 16:50:29.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Ainsley-Sorsby on 2025-02-28 15:49:06.

Original Title: TIL in 1937 the soviets discovered that Samuel Dickstein, a prominent NY congressman, was running a criminal business of selling illegal US passports. He got on the soviet payroll for $1,250 a month($27k today) with the codename "crook", refering to his greediness. Nobody found out until the 90's

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/MonkeyIncidentOf93 on 2025-02-28 14:35:23.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/calvins48 on 2025-02-28 12:51:03.

Original Title: TIL that due to road signs bearing '420' being stolen, the Colorado Department of Transportation replaced the Mile Marker 420 sign on I-70 east of Denver with one reading 419.99. "69" mile marker signs were also frequently stolen - these were replaced with "68.5 mile" ones.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/FullOGreenPeaness on 2025-02-28 12:44:46.

Original Title: TIL that the children’s choir in “Another Brick in the Wall” was paid with a concert ticket, an album, and a single; their school received £1,000. Only 25 years later, after the copyright law changed and the choir members were tracked down, did they receive royalties.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/TMWNN on 2025-02-28 12:34:10.

Original Title: TIL that Elvis had two legal spellings of his middle name. His birth certificate says "Elvis Aron Presley". When the singer decided to change to "Aaron", he found that other state documents already say "Aaron", the way the doctor who delivered him recorded it at birth. The gravestone says "Aaron".

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/E_Zack_Lee on 2025-02-28 12:32:43.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/singing-sailor on 2025-02-28 12:27:07.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Pimpin-is-easy on 2025-02-28 10:52:53.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/zahrul3 on 2025-02-28 07:58:34.

Original Title: TIL that horses, ships, and gold, are notably absent in the ash of Pompeii and Herculaneum, pointing out that many people did manage to escape the Mt. Vesuvius eruption. Analysis of Roman inscriptions in surrounding towns found that they simply rebuilt their lives in nearby towns like Ostia.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Stock_Log_8231 on 2025-02-28 06:07:43.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/FullOGreenPeaness on 2025-02-28 05:00:10.

Original Title: TIL that Sweden once had overseas colonies in Africa, India, South America, the Caribbean, and North America. Most were taken over by other European powers after a short amount of time; the only exception was the island of Saint Barthélemy, which it held for nearly a century.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/lhzvan on 2025-02-28 04:21:28.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Khuzdul1 on 2025-02-28 03:51:36.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Stack_of_HighSociety on 2025-02-28 03:30:59.

Original Title: TIL that violence alters human genes for generations - Grandchildren of women pregnant during Syrian war who never experienced violence themselves bear marks of it in their genomes. This offers the first human evidence of genetic transmission of stress across generations.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Guilty-Hyena5282 on 2025-02-28 02:35:30.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/luthiengreywood on 2025-02-28 02:02:48.