› added 9 years ago

246

TIL that John Argyropoulos, a humanist scholar who escaped the fall of Constantinople and tutored Lorenzo D'Medici died of consuming too much watermelon.

Read more wikipedia.org

via ift.tt

v1lmx TIL of the book “Finnegans Wake”. The book is written by James Joyce and is composed of composite words from sixty to seventy world languages. Written over a period of 17 years it is considered to be one of the most difficult works in the Western canon.
m1kBv TIL the province of Guangdong in southern China has 126 million people in an area smaller than the state of Missouri.
GBr7 TIL that when West Germany wanted to give back-dated pay in 1964 to 350 Askaris who served in the German army during WWI, most no longer had proof of service. A banker asked each claimant to step forward and ordered them in German to perform the German manual of arms with a broom. Not one man failed
Ypobd TIL Mark Riedl developed software to create parody lyrics to existing songs and dubbed his creation 'Weird A.I. Yankovic'.
x6NBD TIL that some of James Cook's maps were still in use until the mid-20th century due to their remarkable accuracy and continued relevance after 200 years