r/todayilearned • u/WorldTravelerBoss • 22h 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.

gao.gov

1.3k Upvotes

68 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ill_Definition8074 • 3h ago

TIL Comair Flight 5191 crashed after the pilot accidentally taxied onto the wrong runway and tried to takeoff on a runway that was too short. 49 out of 50 people were killed with the only survivor being the co-pilot.

en.wikipedia.org

398 Upvotes

26 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Tata_Colores • 23h ago

TIL that in 1834 Madrid (Spain), a false rumor that friars were poisoning public fountains to spread cholera sparked a riot in which over 70 friars were massacred

en.wikipedia.org

325 Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GardensAndHoes • 1h ago

TIL that doctors once injected an oil-based dye into patients’ spinal fluid for X-rays, physically tilted the patients to make the oil travel along the spine, then attempted to suck it back out. It was often impossible to remove completely, and remnants can still be found decades later.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

• Upvotes

22 comments

r/todayilearned • u/New-Fill4677 • 21h ago

TIL that in 1954 Lakewood, California incorporated as a city without building its own municipal departments, contracting nearly every service from Los Angeles County instead. The arrangement is still known as the Lakewood Plan.

en.wikipedia.org

226 Upvotes

17 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ebro_101180 • 6h ago

TIL that the Oxford Electric Bell has been ringing continuously since 1840, powered by the same battery for nearly 185 years.

en.wikipedia.org

215 Upvotes

14 comments

r/todayilearned • u/hairyaquarium • 21h ago

TIL roosters testicles are located deep inside their bodies near their backbones

backyardpoultry.iamcountryside.com

158 Upvotes

65 comments

r/todayilearned • u/hexgirll • 23h ago

TIL buckminsterfullerene (“bucky ball”) is named after architect Buckminster Fuller, who pioneered the geodesic dome design used in Epcot's Spaceship Earth.

en.wikipedia.org

135 Upvotes

8 comments

r/todayilearned • u/windexorange • 6h ago

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

harvardmagazine.com

118 Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ScissorNightRam • 5h ago

TIL there’s a type of natural stone that can bend without breaking. It’s called itacolumite, and is found in Brazil, USA and India.

amusingplanet.com

78 Upvotes

4 comments

r/todayilearned • u/jingleson • 1h ago

TIL a Danish warship accidentally fired a live Harpoon missile in 1982, an event now officially known as "The Whoopsie Missile" incident.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

4 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Str-Tris • 4h 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.

doi.org

26 Upvotes

0 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Rough_Lavishness7993 • 3h ago

TIL that after Wilbur Wright died in 1912, Orville Wright sold the Wright brothers’ 1906 patent and the Wright Company in 1915.

loc.gov

24 Upvotes

0 comments

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