Today I Learned (TIL)

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ExtremeInsert on 2025-03-25 15:22:15+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/LookAtThatBacon on 2025-03-25 14:02:56+00:00.

Original Title: TIL when AOL used to charge users an hourly fee for access to their services, they would add 15 seconds to the time a user was connected to the service and round up to the next whole minute (for example, a person who used the service for 12 minutes and 46 seconds would be charged for 14 minutes).

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Signal-Initial-7841 on 2025-03-25 11:41:27+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/No-Community- on 2025-03-25 13:23:49+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/jacknunn on 2025-03-25 12:03:38+00:00.

Original Title: TIL the Trout memo (1939) compared wartime deception to fly fishing. Issued by Admiral Godfrey, whose assistant was Ian Fleming (James Bond creator), it inspired Operation Mincemeat. This plan put fake documents on a corpse, fooling the Germans into expecting an attack on Greece instead of Sicily

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ICanStopTheRain on 2025-03-25 11:57:04+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Domino’s Pizza used to have a mascot called The Noid. In 1989, a man named Kenneth Noid held two Domino’s employees hostage, believing the mascot was designed to mock him. The employees escaped while he ate pizza. Noid was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and acquitted due to insanity.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/TheLaVeyan on 2025-03-25 11:06:05+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that despite it being usually assumed that Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was based on Ed Gein, the film's writer Tobe Hooper had only vaguely heard of him. Hooper was inspired by a pre-med friend of his from college who wore a cadaver's face to a party as a joke.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Tall_Ant9568 on 2025-03-25 08:37:21+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D not only destroyed Pompeii, but also the cities of Herculaneum, Oplontis, and Stabiae. The locals of these cities were aware of the earthquakes leading up to the eruption, but did not know it was a volcano as they had likely never seen one erupt.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Busy-Contact-5133 on 2025-03-25 08:07:53+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Geo_NL on 2025-03-25 06:53:21+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that German actor Curd Jürgens got into an argument with the brother of SS official Ernst Kaltenbrunner and was sent to a forced labor camp for being "politically unreliable". Later he escaped and went into hiding.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Sfinx_the_Pirate on 2025-03-25 06:31:01+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that in 1978, a 30 people hostage situation in Melbourne was resolved when the perpetrators mother stormed the place, hit him over the head with her handbag and told him to "stop being so stupid".

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/MajesticBread9147 on 2025-03-25 02:45:14+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/77_mec on 2025-03-25 02:44:36+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that there was a robot hitchhiker that successfully hitchhiked across Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands. It then attempted to do so in the United States from Boston to San Francisco and was mercilessly beaten to death and decapitated in Philadelphia within two weeks of having started.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ICanStopTheRain on 2025-03-25 02:36:14+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that the Guinness World Records no longer celebrates "The Loudest Band in the World" for fear of promoting hearing loss. Before they discontinued the record, they had at various points recognized Deep Purple, The Who and Manowar as the record holders.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/gonejahman on 2025-03-25 02:53:41+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/AffectionatePace1410 on 2025-03-25 01:34:51+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that at the Battle of Agincourt, the French army lost three dukes, nine counts, one viscount, an archbishop, their constable, an admiral, their Master of Crossbowman, Master of the Royal Household and roughly 3,000 knights and squires.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Morganbanefort on 2025-03-24 21:33:04+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/dcrockett1 on 2025-03-24 18:35:35+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/TriviaDuchess on 2025-03-25 01:13:55+00:00.

Original Title: TIL the Bear River is the longest U.S. river that never reaches the ocean. It stretches 350 miles, starting in Utah, looping through Wyoming and Idaho, and returning to Utah, where it ends in the Great Salt Lake.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/TriviaDuchess on 2025-03-24 22:34:29+00:00.

Original Title: TIL in 1856, after Charles Sumner gave a blistering anti-slavery speech in the U.S. Senate, Congressman Preston Brooks violently attacked him with a cane on the Senate floor nearly killing him. Congressman Laurence Keitt stood by with a pistol and threatened anyone who tried to intervene.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/TriviaDuchess on 2025-03-25 00:44:34+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Sweyn Forkbeard was the first Viking king to rule England. He massacred, plundered, and burned his way through the countryside, capturing London on Christmas Day 1013. He died just 40 days later. Upon his death the previous king Æthelred the Unready came back and retook his throne.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/mrinternetman24 on 2025-03-24 18:45:21+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that in 2024 a construction company built an entire family home on the wrong lot in Hawaii after miscounting the number of telephone poles on the land. They then sold the home without the landowner knowing.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/wallyhartshorn on 2025-03-24 23:33:24+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/OneAndOnlyJackSchitt on 2025-03-24 19:03:21+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/iiUnknown_ on 2025-03-24 18:59:24+00:00.

Original Title: TIL when the PlayStation 2 was launched, the U.S. Department of Defense considered it to be so advanced that it might enable hostile militaries, typically restricted from accessing such technology, to benefit from its capabilities.