› added 11 years ago

95

TIL there was a song written in the 1630s that was performed only in the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican kept the composition of the piece secret for 150 years until the 14-year-old Mozart listened to the piece 2 times, transcribed it from memory, and produced the first unauthorized copy of the song.

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mJ8y TIL that Dutch anti-immigrant right wing politician Geert Wilders is himself a mixed race and descendant of a mixed Dutch-Indonesian migrant from his mother. And his blond hair is actually also dyed.
d8897 TIL After building an underpass for elephants to cross the highway near Mt. Kenya, it took less than 12 hours for the first elephant to use it.
v1Mm7 The biggest lightning flash on record has been identified. More than twice the size of the previous record, it spanned 709 kilometres – about the distance from London to Geneva.
GAYbG TIL: In 1937 the entirety of the Soviet Central Institute of Aerodynamics were arrested meaning that many WW2 planes were designed from prison
7r66X TIL that after Hippocrates started going bald, he prescribed himself a topical concoction of opium, horseradish, pigeon droppings, beetroot, and spices. After noticing that eunuchs never went bald, he also prescribed castration to prevent hair loss - and researchers in 1995 proved that to be true