Today I Learned (TIL)

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Datdarnpupper on 2025-05-06 12:23:41+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/bendubberley_ on 2025-05-06 12:02:51+00:00.

Original Title: TIL in 1998, a 10-year-old girl in Austria was dragged into a car and kidnapped. The case was unsolved by authorities for 8 years until in 2006 she knocked on someone’s door and said “I am Natascha Kampusch.” She had just escaped the cellar she was being abused in by a local technician.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/aschephnx on 2025-05-06 11:45:09+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 on 2025-05-06 11:26:05+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that some Victorians embraced the dangerous "tapeworm diet," swallowing tapeworm eggs in hopes the parasites would absorb food in the intestines, aiding weight loss. Tapeworms can live over 20 years, grow as long as 80 feet, and cause severe health issues.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/zahrul3 on 2025-05-06 11:13:51+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/nosedigging on 2025-05-06 07:30:05+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/EuphoricNecessary864 on 2025-05-06 05:15:21+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that in the early 20th century, Danes living under Prussian rule were banned from displaying the Danish flag. To protest this, they bred pigs with a red and white color pattern similar to their flag. The breed is now called the Danish Protest Pig

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/JoeyZasaa on 2025-05-06 04:31:39+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/RatedArgForPiratesFU on 2025-05-06 02:51:01+00:00.

Original Title: TIL it takes orders of magnitude greater computational resources to recognise a loved one in a photograph than it does to perform a complex arithmetic calculation. This is called Moravec's paradox. We effortlessly do as humans what computers find incredibly demanding, and vice versa.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/bendubberley_ on 2025-05-06 02:43:59+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that photographer Carol Highsmith donated tens of thousands of her photos to the Library of Congress, making them free for public use. Getty Images later claimed copyright on many of these photos, then accused her of copyright infringement by using one of her own photos on her own site.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/bendubberley_ on 2025-05-06 02:24:45+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/tyrion2024 on 2025-05-06 02:10:11+00:00.

Original Title: TIL Emilia Clarke read the words that revealed her character Daenerys Targaryen's fate 7 times in a row thinking "What, what, what, WHAT!?" because it "comes out of fucking nowhere." She also cried & went on a 5-hr walk that put blisters on her feet. Eventually, she stands by Dany's "Mad Queen" turn

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/JelloAlarming2414 on 2025-05-06 01:53:20+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/OmgThisNameIsFree on 2025-05-06 00:33:36+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/RippingLegos__ on 2025-05-06 00:04:24+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that in 1809, the Austrian army accidentally attacked itself during the Battle of Wagram. Confused by darkness and miscommunication, one unit mistook another for the enemy — and launched a full-on assault. Over 10,000 men were involved in the chaos.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ModenaR on 2025-05-05 22:35:15+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Spykryo on 2025-05-05 21:17:02+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Buzz Aldrin was known among his fellow astronauts to be very difficult to work with, to the point that Neil Armstrong was offered the chance to replace Aldrin with someone else for the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Armstrong thought it over for a day before choosing to stick with Aldrin.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/British_Rover on 2025-05-05 20:54:14+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/weeenerdog on 2025-05-05 20:06:38+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/twotubes on 2025-05-05 19:54:29+00:00.

Original Title: TIL about Preserved Fish, a prominent NYC shipping merchant who sailed to the Pacific in his youth aboard a whaling vessel, became Captain Preserved Fish at 21 and amassed a fortune selling whale oil before his death in 1846.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/No_Material3111 on 2025-05-05 18:57:27+00:00.

Original Title: Today I learned that Danny Devito actually directed Matilda (1996) and how incredibly kind he was to the Matilda Actress Mara Wilson and even made sure that an unfunished cut was shown to her dying Mom.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/HeavyMetalOverbite on 2025-05-05 16:03:43+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/dontflyaway on 2025-05-05 14:34:32+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/thighpadkid on 2025-05-05 13:47:27+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Tall_Ant9568 on 2025-05-05 13:33:54+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Neanderthals in Paleolithic Europe may have used Manganese Oxide powder as a fuel additive to add spark and heat to kindling for fires in the cold, subarctic climate of Central Europe. Manganese reduces the temperature needed to start a fire by 80-180 degrees Celsius.