› added 7 years ago

341

TIL Used Crayola crayons that are too small to grasp or too flat to draw with are named “Leftolas”. In 2003, the company asked kids around the country to send in blue “Leftolas”. Crayola received the equivalent of 123,000 crayons. They used it to create Big Blue, a 1,500lb crayon that’s 15ft long.

Read more mentalfloss.com

via reddit.com

9bXQ TIL The longest work of fiction ever written is three million words long and six times longer than War and Peace, as of July 2013. It is a Super Smash Bros. Brawl fanfic.
MJ8B TIL Vikings used ravens to navigate. They brought ravens aboard their ships, then released them and sailed in the same direction to find land. The raven was so important to them that it became the symbol on their flag.
nemeB TIL former Ugandan president Idi Amin called himself: "His Excellency, President for Life... Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular", in addition to his claim of being uncrowned King of Scotland.
R7VM9 TIL of Mbaye Diagne, a Senegalese military officer and UN observer who disobeyed UN Rules of Engagement to save "at least hundreds" during the Rwandan Genocide.
YwKG TIL Bryan Cranston did most of his own stunts on “Malcolm in the Middle”. A writer on the show jokingly asked whether Cranston would be willing to wear a suit of live bees, Cranston said yes—so they wrote a script around the idea. He ended up covered in 10,000 bees, and only got stung once.