› added 4 months ago

20

TIL Mount Villingili, the highest point in the Maldives, peaks at 5.1m/16.75ft above sea-level, comfortably shorter than the pole vault world record.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

yVjkl TIL the novel "The Wreck of the Titan" was written in 1898, before the real Titanic was even an idea. Like the Titanic, the fictional ship sank after wrecking on an iceberg in April in the North Atlantic Ocean, and there were not enough lifeboats.
eRYL TIL The first postage stamp to depict a nude woman was printed in Spain in 1930, in commemoration of Goya’s painting ‘La maja desnuda’ (the nude maja). In the same year, the United States government barred and returned any mail bearing the stamps.
OoyLe TIL there is a word for the study of culturally induced ignorance: Agnatology. Culturally induced ignorance can come from media neglect or deliberate misrepresentation; Corporate and government manipulation, secrecy, suppression, document destruction, selectivity, inattention, & forgetfulness.
KOj16 TIL The word "canvas" is derived from the word cannabis. Hemp, a variety of the cannabis, was commonly used to make sail canvas.
wLExP TIL the Jaguar XF's start button pulses at the rate of 72 BPM, which is the heart rate of a resting jaguar cat.