› added 12 years ago

189

TIL there is an old, famous Chinese tale that details the life of the Monkey King, a very powerful boy that is half monkey, can transform to become stronger, and rides around on a cloud with his staff helping people. His name is Sun Wu-Kong or, when translated to Japanese, Son Goku.

KYY5Q TIL the John Harvard statue at Harvard University is called the Statue of Three Lies because he didn't found the college, and he wasn't a major benefactor having bequeathed his library of books and a sum of money to the fledgling college. Further, the statue is not of John Harvard.
v1bOB TIL the first black baseball player wasn't Jackie Robinson, but rather Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played in the 1880s despite rampant racism. He was also an inventor, newspaper editor, hotel owner, opera house manager, postal worker, and a published author on race theory.
YpDvr TIL of Luke “Milky” Moore, an Australian who was able to overdraft over $1.5 million from his bank. He was eventually sent to prison, appealed and argued his own case, was released, and is now studying to become a criminal defense lawyer.
j6KpR TIL that after his crew on the USS Tangier performed dismally on a training exercise in Pearl Harbor, Captain Clifton Sprague told them "We’re not prepared. We can’t trust the Japanese. How do you know the Japanese won’t attack tomorrow?" The next day, December 7th, the Japanese attacked.
8aZkZ TIL staghorn ferns exhibit behaviors which are similar to ant and bee colonies (e.g. division of labor and cooperative survival). This phenomenon, known as eusociality, marks a major evolutionary transition for complex lifeforms and has previously only been observed in animals and insects.