› added 5 years ago

148

TIL many of the "Real Facts" printed inside Snapple bottle caps are outdated, incomplete, inaccurate or just plain false.

Read more theatlantic.com

via reddit.com

D1r9Y TIL "The Present" begins January 1st, 1950. For radiocarbon dating, identifying anything after this date is unreliable due to the skewering of Carbon-12 and Carbon-14 that detonating nuclear devices in our atmosphere has caused.
0wgdp TIL cats that have saggy bellies aren't just fat, it's called the primordial pouch and helps protect them during fights and move easier when running and jumping.
KYKlB TIL there was a french man named Tarrare who had the most unusual eating habits. As a teen he could eat his own weight in meat in a day. Later in life he ate a meal intended for 15 people in a single sitting, ate live cats and puppies and swallowed eels whole without chewing. He was underweight.
LkZVv TIL that in 3000 BC the North Star was not Polaris, but a star called Thuban, because the axis of the earth was pointed in a different direction back then. This is because of the precession of equinoxes speeding and slowing down of the earth's spin through imperceptible intervals.
nW7vr TIL that Xerox built the first personal computer with a mouse-based graphical user interface (GUI) in 1973, 10 years before anyone else. But they couldn't see any reason why anyone would want a PC so they didn't market it