› added 4 years ago

167

TIL that the word "corgi" is welsh for "dwarf dog".

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

VMgQ8 TIL in 1962 Marilyn Monroe left most of her estate to her acting coach Lee Strasberg. When Strasberg died in 1982, his wife Anna, who had never known Monroe inherited her estate. In 1999 she auctioned off Monroe's personal belongings for $14 million.
Z8nBQ TIL If the Earth was 50% larger in diameter, we wouldn't be able to escape the atmosphere using rockets.
grxP8 TIL When the 1930s musician Russ Columbo died from an accidental gunshot, his siblings went to great lengths to conceal the news from his mother, who had a heart condition. They wrote fake letters from him and used records to simulate his radio show. This continued until she died a decade later.
nWe0P TIL that the largest organ in Europe is in St Stephen's Cathedral, Passau, Germany.
yQlMX TIL that the British phrase 'blowing smoke up my arse' comes from 1700s London: the banks of the Thames were lined with bellows that were used to perform a 'smoke enema' on drowned londoners in an attempt to save them. It was not effective.