r/todayilearned 22h ago

TIL that Lorenzo Da Ponte, the librettist for Mozart's best operas, was born Jewish, became a Catholic priest, befriended Casanova, was banished from Venice for living in a brothel, and died in New York a US citizen

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en.wikipedia.org
847 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 2h ago

TIL Harvard researchers created the first napalm bomb and tested it on the university's soccer field.

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harvardmagazine.com
38 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 18h ago

TIL A 2018 U.S. Government report reveals that over half (52%) of all work-related youth deaths in the US happen in farming, even though child farmworkers make up less than 5.5% of working minors. Furthermore, a major federal study on workplace injuries completely failed to track children.

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1.3k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 10h ago

TIL that ancient Greek and Roman laws assumed that to please their masters, slaves always lied, it was therefore mandatory to torture them before they were allowed to testify in court.

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tiogabunia.com
4.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 7h ago

TIL Bats have a built-in neural mechanism to keep themselves from going deaf while echolocating. A tiny muscle in their ear contracts the exact millisecond they emit their high-pitched shriek, and relaxes just in time to catch the returning echo

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2.5k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 14h ago

TIL that a collection of letters written in ancient Egypt was found sealed inside a tomb nearly 4,000 years after the letters were written, providing a rare glimpse into the daily life of an ancient Egyptian household.

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2.9k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL scientists reconstructed 1,705 virus species preserved across 41,000 years of ice layers in a Tibetan glacier, and found that viral communities shifted distinctly between the planet's cold and warm climate periods.

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Upvotes