Postagens

Mostrando postagens de fevereiro, 2020

TIL Enya is a recluse who lives in a mansion with her cats and makes music with an elderly couple, the lyrics to which she sometimes sings in Sindarin and Quenya - elven languages JRR Tolkien invented for Lord of the Rings.

TIL the same man was fight choreographer for The Princess Bride, Highlander, Lord of the Rings, The Mask of Zorro , and more. He was also a stunt double for Darth Vader's lightsaber battles in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. His name was Bob Anderson.

TIL, Johnny Cash was brutally attacked by an ostrich he kept in a wildlife park, it broke 2 ribs and slashed his stomach open. As a result of the pain pills he was prescribed, he fell back into drug addiction years after overcoming them.

TIL: Monty Python and the Holy Grail's $319,000 budget was bankrolled by Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Elton John, and Jethro Tull.

TIL After McDonalds lost the Big Mac trademark in Europe, Burger King added things like the “Like a Big Mac, But Actually Big” to the menu

TIL People started wearing pajamas, originally spelled “pyjamas,” instead of nightgowns so they’d be prepared to run outside in public during World War I air raids in England.

TIL Heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury struggled w/drug addiction & mental health issues for years. When he first fought Deontay Wilder in 2018, Fury donated his entire $9 million purse from the fight to charities that specialize in providing housing for recovering alcoholics and addicts

TIL in the evening of September 11, 2001, a man named Henryk Siwiak was murdered in New York City. Since the entire police department was focused on the attacks, little investigation took place. His death remains unsolved and the killer was never found.

TIL Brazilian billionaire Chiquinho Scarpa decided 2013 to bury his $500,000 car. This led to an outcry as he rather ruin his car than donate it. But at the burial Scarpa revealed his bluff to the press, saying that anyone who refuse to donate their organs bury something far more valuable than a car

TIL that the first thing that was ever bought and sold over the internet was weed. In 1971 or 1972, Stanford students using Arpanet accounts at Stanford's AI Laboratory engaged in a commercial transaction with their counterparts at MIT, and thus the first act of e-commerce was a pot deal.

TIL that Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and many more novels, graduated Harvard Medical School with his MD. He never obtained his medical license (after deciding he hated the system and culture), and instead pursued writing.

TIL only 400 out of the 7000 diseases classified as “rare” have an effective treatment. This fact is recognized during Rare Disease Day, which is held every year on the last day of February. This day also holds an extra special meaning on February 29 – the rarest day of the year.

TIL a 60-year-old American man with severe amnesia was blind for 9 months due not being able to afford cataract surgery. When a charity paid for it and he could see again, he was shocked to discover he was around 20 years older than he thought he was.

TIL In 1964, a Swedish art gallery displayed 4 paintings by unknown artist Pierre Brassau. Every single art critic praised the ‘avant-garde’ work- except one, who said, ‘only an ape could have done this’. In fact it was all a hoax by a journalist and 'Brassau’ was actually a 4-year-old chimpanzee.

TIL in 1998 Mila Kunis was cast in the FOX sitcom That '70s Show. All who auditioned were required to be at least 18 years old; Kunis, who was 14 at the time, told the casting directors she would be 18 but did not say when. She played in all 200 episodes of the show.

TIL that most mammals take 12 seconds to poop, no matter their size. Larger animals have bigger feces, but also excrete more mucus, accelerating defecation. It is speculated speedy voiding is helpful in avoiding predators.

TIL 82% of Americans can't drive a manual transmission car

TIL that despite being 23 kg (50 lbs), medieval knight armo(u)r is actually not as stiff as often portrayed and quite flexible. A Knight would be able to run full speed in it, fight with the dexterity of a common soldier and even perform acrobatics.

TIL in 1942, as Japanese torpedoes slowly sank the U.S.S. Lexington, then the second-largest aircraft carrier in the Navy’s arsenal, the crew abandoned ship - but not before breaking into the freezer and eating all the ice cream.

TIL the search for the Titanic was a cover story by the US Navy to recover two sunken nuclear submarines. However, the exploration finished with 12 days to spare in which they searched and found the Titanic.

TIL In Lilo and Sitch (2002), Stitch is called 'Experiment 626' because he is his creator's 626th experiment. In an episode of the Lilo and Stitch TV series, they meet 'Experiment 420', who is green and has the power to make food taste better.

TIL that Germany has the only tree in the world with its own mailing address. It's known as the Bridegroom Oak, and it receives about 1000 letters per year from singles looking for love. Anyone can take letters from the tree and respond. They estimate that it's responsible for over 100 marriages.

TIL After illegally demolishing a historic London pub that survived the Blitz, a property developer/lawyer was ordered by court to rebuild it brick by brick.

TIL less than five per cent of the victims of transatlantic slavery were landed on the coast of the present-day United States. Most enslaved Africans were carried to the Caribbean (45 per cent) or to Brazil (45 per cent).

TIL about Operation Flagship, where the U.S. Marshals sent letters to 5,000 fugitives telling them that they had won NFL tickets, and to come and collect their prize at a Convention Center. 100 people showed up and were arrested for their outstanding warrants.

TIL Batman: The Animated Series was ranked by IGN as being the second best animated series ever, behind only The Simpsons

TIL couples can become external regulators for one another, essentially functioning as a mutual bio-feedback system. Their pupils dilate in synchrony, they echo one another's speech patterns, movements, and even cardiac and EEG rhythms.

TIL that the most requested song at British funerals is Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". The comedy song beat out more traditional choices like "The Lord is My Shepherd" and "Abide With Me," as well as Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now".

TIL about the "gringo tree". So named because when exposed to he sun it becomes red and peeling.

TIL Due to their size, the Nintendo Switch Game Cards are coated with denatonium benzoate, a non-toxic, bitter-tasting agent, as a safety precaution against accidental consumption by young children.

TIL The Beatles song, "Come Together" was inspired by a request from Timothy Leary to write a song for his campaign for governor of California against Ronald Reagan, which promptly ended when Leary was sent to prison for possession of marijuana

TIL the ManhattAnt is a unique species of ant found only in New York City. Biologists stumbled upon them in the Broadway medians at 63rd and 76th streets in 2010, and the biologists claim the ant species does not match any of the 13,000 known species. The ants subsist on a diet high in corn syrup.

TIL in 1992, Tupac created "The Code of Thug Life", a code of ethics designed to combat street violence among gang members such as not committing carjacking or not harming children. It is considered one of reasons for the decline of crime in Los Angeles since then and was introduced in other cities.

TIL a common misconception in Miranda rights is that you are “off the hook” if your rights are not read to you. Another misunderstanding is that police are required to Mirandize a person; this is NOT the case. Mirandize a suspect is only required if they intend to interrogate that person in custody.

TIL during the Battle of Germantown, a little terrier was seen wandering between the American and British lines; British General Lord Howe's dog had gotten loose. It was taken to Washington to keep as a trophy, instead he fed and brushed him, and formally returned the dog under a flag of truce

TIL locusts are not a species. They are actually grasshoppers which have developed gregarious characteristics in suitable environmental conditions forming an organized group

TIL The crucial reason why manholes are round is because a round lid cannot fall into a round opening whereas a square lid can fall into a square opening diagonally

TIL that Maria Theresa of Austria had her children inoculated against smallpox after the epidemic of 1767. This changed the negative perception of inoculation among Austrian physicians. Maria Theresa also held a dinner in her palace for the first 65 children who had been inoculated in Austria.

TIL one man who has a very rare blood type helped save the lives of more than 2,000,000 babies by donating blood nearly every week for the past 60 years

TIL that the depiction of angels as winged humanoids in robes was just a relatively recent idea. In the Bible, they were described as terrifying odd shapes and stuff. One was a burning wheel with multiple eyes and another was a four-faced being. This was why they would say 'fear not' to a human.

TIL of an organization called 'Bikers Against Child Abuse,' a group of bikers who protect victims of child abuse by standing guard at their house and accompany them into court to testify when they are too afraid to face their abuser.

TIL a woman told an auto shop she had to cancel her service appt. as her car was stolen. One of the 3 Tulsa men who own the auto shop called her back the next day to tell her he & his buddies are chasing her stolen car. With TPD dispatch, they got her car back after after a 15 min chase.

TIL of the American Indian Chief, Adam Fortunate Eagle, who landed in Italy in full traditional regalia and claimed the country "by right of discovery" , just as Columbus had claimed the Americas.

TIL about misophonia; a recently proven brain abnormality which means sufferers have a hatred of sounds such as eating, chewing, loud breathing or even repeated pen-clicking (as well as other trigger noises).

TIL Back in 1965 a Senate subcommittee predicted that we'd enjoy 2-hour work weeks by the year 2000. However, In 1991, the average American worker put in 163 more hours on the job than in 1973, according to the sociologist Juliet Schor, the author of “The Overworked American.”

TIL that a Spanish town mailed dog poop back to offenders. A team of volunteers looked for careless dog owners and struck up conversations to learn the dog's name, which made it possible to identify the owner via pet records and mail back the poop, labeled "Lost Property." Violations dropped by 70%.

TIL the first recorded pizza delivery was in 1889 to Queen Margherita of Savoy. Reportedly, she was tired of courtly fare and requested a local peasant meal; they delivered a white, green, and red pie to symbolize the newly unified Italy's flag. She called it "delicious" and the rest is history.

TIL that hundreds of US agents during the cold war were caught due to their fake soviet passports. It was later discovered that it was due to the stainless-steel staples used in these forged passports, unlike the soviet ones which corroded very easily.

TIL that ‘seven nation army’ is how a young Jack White used to mispronounce the Salvation Army.

TIL that in 1965, 21 yr old Al Kooper bluffed his way into the studio where Bob Dylan was recording Highway 61 Revisited. Although he didn't know how to play the Hammond organ or even turn it on, his improvised intro & off the beat riffs became the signature groove & sound of "Like A Rolling Stone".