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TIL that the term “it ain’t over til’ the fat lady sings” originally references the conclusion of a lengthy epic four part opera called Der Ring des Nibelungen; in which, the “fat lady” or Valkyrie Brünnhilde sings for about 20 minutes, signaling the end the nearly 16 hour saga.

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6eDm TIL that a treasure hunter named Tommy Thompson located a ship that sank in 1857 called the SS Central America. The ship carried several tons of gold, and in 1987, he recovered over $1 billion worth of gold from it. He never paid back his crew or investors, and hasn’t been seen in years.
XEA18 TIL that in 1999, Harvard physicist Lene Hau was able to slow down light to 17 meters per second and in 2001, was able to stop light completely.
neX8o TIL that Dr. Carlo Urbani recognized the emergence of a outbreak of pneumonia as a new epidemic and immediately notified the WHO, personally flying to Hanoi to investigate. He would die this day in 2003 of SARS, having triggered the most effective response to an epidemic in history.
rmrx TIL That in the early 1970s Chile experimented with a centralised computer network that would provide live economic data for “managing resources, detecting problems before they arise, and to experiment with economic policies”. It was destroyed when Pinichet’s regime took power before completion.
MLVb TIL The Cherokee believed that plants, in response to witnessing suffering in the world, created a medicinal plant to cure each disease. When a Medicine Man did not know which plant to use the spirits of the plants told him.