› added 6 years ago

147

TIL that there is a lake in Australia named "Lake Disappointment". It was named this because the discoverer, Frank Hann, followed an inland flowing creek expecting to find a large freshwater lake, only to find a dried up lake bed because the lake is typically dry. So he named it "Disappointment"

oRk4Y TIL Red Delicious apples, now widely regarded as the worst variety of apples, used to actually be both red and delicious. Growers were paid based on an apple's color and level of bruising, so Red Delicious was artificially selected for tougher, redder skin, at the sacrifice of taste and texture.
QJyjL TIL: In 480 BC, King Xerxes I of Persia built bridges to invade Greece. But a storm destroyed these bridges. Enraged, King Xerxes threw chains in the sea, whipped the sea 300 times and burned it with red-hot irons as his men shouted at the water. The next bridge built was not destroyed.
NllN TIL that the pharmacological treatment of Hepatitis C is over 90% effective. In the United States, it typically costs between $84,000-$94,000.
X0naQ TIL when East Germany reunified with West Germany in 1990, the German government withdrew East Germany banknotes from circulation, but instead of burning them, they let them rot in a concrete bunker until two people broke in and stole a large quantity of notes in 2001. Then what was left was burned.
WDE8 TIL that Japanese Buddhists would self-sacrifice by sealing themselves inside a ship boarded-up like a coffin. At sea they either pulled a wooden plug from the hull and drowned or died of thirst or starvation.