r/todayilearned

TIL that during the difficult birth of his son, Napoleon was asked if wife or child should be prioritized. He ordered the empress to be saved but both survived. Napoleon was traumatized by watching his wife's pain saying “I had rather never have any more children than see her suffer so much again"

TIL a geologist was ridiculed for decades for claiming the Pacific Northwest was carved by a catastrophic Ice Age flood. NASA satellite images proved him right in the 1970s. He finally received geology's highest honor at 96 and said "All my enemies are dead, so I have no one to gloat over."

TIL during the shooting of American Psycho, Christian Bale spoke in an American accent off-set at all times. At the wrap party, when he spoke in his native British accent, many of the crew thought he was speaking that way to prepare for another film. They had thought he was American the entire time.

TIL NBC offered James Gandolfini $4 million to play the new Dunder Mifflin manager on “The Office” following Steve Carell’s departure. HBO offered Gandolfini $3 million to decline the role and protect his legacy as Tony Soprano. Gandolfini accepted their counteroffer.

TIL actress Angela Lansbury moved her entire family from California to Ireland because her daughter was starting to get involved with Charles Manson.

TIL that "fair play" in detective fiction means authors must give readers a fair chance to solve the mystery. Central to 1920s "clue-puzzles" by writers like Agatha Christie, the rule dictates that all vital clues must be visible, decodable, and never withheld until the final reveal.

TIL that in the 1990s, Dolly Parton made $10 million in royalties from Whitney Houston’s cover of her song “I Will Always Love You.” She then invested the money into an office complex in a majority-Black neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee. She later described it as “the house that Whitney built.”

TIL that in 37 BC, the Roman polymath Marcus Terentius Varro warned his readers to avoid living near swamps because of "minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes" and cause disease. Microorganisms would not be observed until the 17th century

TIL Canada's $1 coin is commonly called the "loonie" because it has a loon on the reverse. When a $2 coin was introduced, depicting a polar bear, an MP proposed it be called "Nanuq", Inuit for polar bear, but he was ignored because the public instead preferred to call it the "toonie" (2-oonie).

TIL that a Sherpa was presumed dead after being stranded at 7,500m on Everest. He survived six days without bottled oxygen or food, chewing ice and eating chocolate, then spent 2.5 days trapped in a crevasse. After escaping, he crawled toward Base Camp while his family prepared for his funeral.