› added 1 year ago

184

TIL: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers drained Niagra Falls in 1969. It ended up attracting more visitors than any other feat attempted at the falls. The engineers wanted to find a way to remove the unseemly boulders that had piled up at its base since 1931, cutting the height of the falls in half...

Read more smithsonianmag.com

via reddit.com

awexA TIL There is an ongoing study of Dutch seniors over age 100, self-reported to be cognitively healthy, where they are followed annually until death. Centenarians came from higher socio-economic classes and had higher levels of education compared to their birth cohort
VkOp TIL that when two British sailors saw the ancient Roman column ‘Pompey’s Pillar’ in 1803, they climbed it, flew a Union Jack, affixed a weather vane to the top, ate steaks and toasted King George III.
ZpyLY TIL the Austrlian jewel beetle nearly went extinct because of Emu beer bottles. Their colour and texture drove the male beetles wild with lust, causing them to ignore the females of the species and swarm the bottles until they starved to death or were eaten by other animals.
gvbA TIL that Sept 11th has a different meaning in Chile. That was the date in 1973 that the CIA backed the overthrow of a democratic government by Augusto Pinocet who would go on to kill over 3000 and torture up to 30,000 Chileans.
d8MA7 TIL that in 1963, a man tore down a wall in his house and noticed an enormous and complex tunnel system behind it. He had rediscovered the ancient underground city Derinkuyu in Turkey.