Today I Learned (TIL)

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/GetYerHandOffMyPen15 on 2025-02-05 13:10:45.

Original Title: TIL that in 1951, the 3’7” (109 cm) Eddie Gaedel was put in as a pinch hitter in an MLB game. His strike zone was 1.5” (3.8 cm) high, and he was told he’d be shot if he swung at the ball. He was walked and then replaced with a pinch runner. His autograph is now worth more than Babe Ruth’s.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/ThrownAwayGuineaPig on 2025-02-05 12:41:07.

Original Title: TIL that SOS is a reverse acronym (a backronym). It is a distinctive and easy way to remember the morse code distress signal of three dots, three dashes, three dots. Only after its implementation did the mnemonic phrase such as "Save Our Souls come into use

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/TMWNN on 2025-02-05 11:14:49.

Original Title: TIL of a law for how to handle simultaneous deaths. The Uniform Simultaneous Death Act says that if (for example) a husband and wife die in a plane crash without a will, the husband died before the wife and the wife died before the husband. Their estate is divided evenly.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Last-Saint on 2025-02-05 10:36:41.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Phrygian100 on 2025-02-05 11:38:56.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/TMWNN on 2025-02-05 11:27:57.

Original Title: TIL that a novel helped fix the author's relationship with his father. Donald Conroy was a USMC pilot who violently abused his children, including author Pat Conroy. Pat fictionalized his father as "The Great Santini" in a novel. Reading about himself caused Donald to admit his flaws to his family.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/TMWNN on 2025-02-05 10:55:17.

Original Title: TIL that American Airlines created Sabre, the multi-airline reservation system. Knowing that more than 50% of travel agents chose the first flight they saw, American modified the ranking system to display its flights before those from rivals. The US outlawed such manipulation in 1984.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/TMWNN on 2025-02-05 10:42:01.

Original Title: TIL that when Radio Shack in 1977 planned its first personal computer, the $599 TRS-80, it built 3,500 units. The company had never sold that many of anything at that price, and planned to use the computer for inventory in its 3,500 stores if it failed. More than 200,000 were sold by 1980.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/PiercedAndTattoedBoy on 2025-02-05 09:00:44.

Original Title: TIL in 1950 U.S. Senator Edwin C. Johnson’s favorite actress was Ingrid Bergman. However, when it became public knowledge that she had an affair, he introduced legislation banning all Hollywood movies starring amoral actors and actresses. Humiliated, Bergman left the country.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/AtheistAgnostic on 2025-02-05 05:38:58.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/MoonLightSongBunny on 2025-02-05 05:13:31.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/A_Novelty-Account on 2025-02-05 04:26:18.

Original Title: TIL about the 1st Special Service Force, aka the “Devil’s Brigade” – a US-Canada joint unit composed during WWII and the first modern special forces. They fought and died together during the most dangerous allied deployments of WWII, and suffered a casualty rate of up to 77%.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/OldIndianMonk on 2025-02-05 04:19:14.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/TriviaDuchess on 2025-02-05 03:32:02.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Millard_Fillmore00 on 2025-02-05 03:08:59.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/JparkerMarketer on 2025-02-05 01:25:45.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/TriviaDuchess on 2025-02-05 00:56:46.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Prestigious_Cake_192 on 2025-02-04 22:20:11.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/PoodleBirds on 2025-02-05 04:27:49.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/ALSX3 on 2025-02-05 04:09:05.

Original Title: TIL Over 2 billion people are estimated to eat insects on a daily basis. Today, insect eating is uncommon in North America and Europe, but insects remain a popular food elsewhere, and some companies are trying to introduce insects as food into Western diets.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/AprumMol on 2025-02-05 03:20:10.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Infamous-Echo-3949 on 2025-02-05 03:20:01.

Original Title: TIL about the experiment to find the world's funniest (most average) joke with the widest appeal. Richard Wiseman created LaughLab, an online experiment for people to submit and rate jokes. Gurpal Gosal of Manchester submitted the winning joke based on a 1951 radio skit written by Spike Milligan.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/sortingoutmythoughts on 2025-02-05 02:54:17.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/GetYerHandOffMyPen15 on 2025-02-05 02:33:59.

Original Title: TIL that Ozzy Osbourne once met with a German record executive while drunk. He tried to “lighten the mood” by performing a striptease and kissing the executive on the lips. The situation then escalated to him goose-stepping up and down the table and urinating in the exec’s wine.

The original post: /r/todayilearned by /u/Texas_Rockets on 2025-02-05 00:42:44.

Original Title: TIL According to a 2023 lawsuit filed by Cassie Ventura against Sean Combs, Ventura dated Cudi in or around 2012, resulting in Combs threatening Ventura that he would "blow up [Cudi's] car." Cudi confirmed that soon after this threat, his car had exploded.