› added 1 year ago

28

TIL of Maurice Wilson who, against all odds, flew his own plane from England to India to be the first to summit Everest under the assumption that ‘prayer and fasting’ would give him the strength to reach the peak.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

gMrdX Depending on your beliefs (and luck), when you drop dead, a variety of things await what’s left of your handsome corpse. If you’re Christian, you might be put in a box, and your friends will come by to tell each other how great you look. Nobody said this when you were alive—but hey, take what you can get! Hindus are typically cremated, and if you’re a Jedi, you might meet a similar fate while surrounded by Ewoks.If you kick the bucket in certain parts of Mozambique, a wake of vultures might gather round and peck out your lifeless eyeballs. After devouring your eyes, these scavenging birds will most likely move on to your butt. Like Sir Mix-A-Lot—but for different reasons—vultures are preoccupied with the derriere. Vultures are just opportunists, and they naturally go after the soft spots first.National Geographic Explorer Jen Guyton is studying mammal ecology and conservation in Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. In this week’s Today I Learned, Guyton explains that vultures are eating more tush than usual due to loss of larger scavengers. Bon appétit!Click here to read more on why vultures are important.
jNRja TIL in Iceland, if you don’t know the address to where you want your mail to go, you can hand-draw a map to your destination on the envelope
9Z1m TIL that the NFL cannot host games on Fridays or Saturdays until late December as federal law prohibits professional football leagues from competing with college or high school football, which typically host games on those days.
69b4X TIL the steelpan, which originated in Trinidad and Tobago, now appears on its official coat of arms.
Wlb8 TIL that in Greek mythology Zeus thought that the Earth is overpopulated and Trojan War was instigated to depopulate the Earth.