› added 13 years ago

194

TIL the world’s largest insect is so big, it can fit a carrot in its mouth.

Read more telegraph.co.uk

via reddit.com

QJ9DX TIL that the variant of the word okay - “OK” - is derivative from Martin van Buren’s nickname “Old Kinderhook” and was popularised by his rallies for the 1836 US election
EPEw TIL that self-mummification (a process called Sokushunbutsu) was practiced by Japanese Shugendō monks as the ultimate act of self denial. This ritual lasted around nine years, six of which the monk would be alive for.
8Zy8 TIL the Eternal September is a term that refers to the month when Usenet experienced a large influx of AOL users… the network’s existing culture couldn’t integrate the sheer number of new users, and according to pre-1993 users, never fully recovered
9Yr76 TIL Ryan North (Marvel writer) once got stuck in a skate pit with only "his dog Noam Chompsky, an umbrella, a leash, a t-shirt, and a pocket computer" after the rain had made the pit slippery. When he asked Twitter users for help, they found a way for him to combine those items that let him escape.
8eAnZ TIL Forrest Fenn, an art dealer and author hid a treasure chest (gold nuggets, rare coins, gemstones etc) in the Rocky Mountains worth around $2,000,000. It was found approximately a decade later, in 2020. Before that several people went missing searching for it.