NXJZN TIL Córdoba, one of the largest and most prosperous cities in the world in AD 1000, had about the same population then as it does today (~400,000 vs 324,000)
l7b5r TIL Stove Top Stuffing became available in stores in 1972, and its success was largely due to the patented size of the breadcrumbs, which allowed them to rehydrate quickly
8eO9V TIL infamous investor Michael Burry has an MD degree and has an active licence in the state of California. He also lost his eye to cancer at the age of 2 and wears a prosthetic eye.
P1DQG TIL there is a new handmade marketplace co-op where everything is actually handmade
OGvZX TIL that in 1971 Andre the Giant wrestled in Baghdad in front of Saddam Hussein, who had threatened to kill him if he won the match. Andre went on to lose the match to native Iraqi wrestler Adnan al-Kaissie, later known in the WWF as General Adnan
X0bZQ TIL Shrek was originally supposed to be voiced by Chris Farley but when he died, Mike Myers replaced him.
VBbQZ TIL that elephant birds laid the largest eggs of any animal ever—including all dinosaurs. They went extinct in Madagascar around 1,000 years ago
epbPb TIL that if you play the 1978 Atlanta Rhythm Section song ""imaginary Lover" at 45rpm instead of 33rpm, it sounds exactly like Stevie Nicks. In fact, Nicks found out about this and presented it as her own demo to her Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie as a joke, and McVie believed it.
69w4l TIL that Idiocracy grossed less than $500,000 at the international box office, primarily because 20th Century Fox refused to screen it to critics or market it at all.
R5yoj TIL that Saimin was most likely invented in Hawai'i during the plantation era of the 1800s. As someone from Hawai'i, I thought Saimin was just another name for noodles
wo4PM TIL that according to the four color theorem, only four colors are needed to make any map where no adjacent regions have the same color. It was the first major theorem to be proved using a computer, which attracted some initial skepticism.
W7b14 TIL most incidents of a patient waking up during surgery (awareness during anesthesia) last for less than 5 minutes. Whereas, in 2008 when Donna Penner woke up during her surgery (unable to talk or move), she proceeded to stay awake (& aware) for 90 minutes despite having received general anesthesia