› added 3 years ago

187

TIL Olympians prior to and following their events hold massive parties or benders at the “Olympic Village” built in the hosting country. With tension and hormones running rampant, and in the comfort of a press free environment, festivities often include heavy drinking, wild sex, and even orgies.

Read more espn.com

via reddit.com

neB5W TIL that Nazis ordered the Minsk Ghetto to turn over a Jewish resistance leader, Hersh Smolar, hiding in a hospital. They handed over a bloody passport and said he'd been killed in a roundup shooting. The Nazis fell for it. Smolar survived the war.
v1mAL TIL about Missouri Compromise. It determined that in states located south of the 36°30' parallel, slavery was allowed. Every time the United States expanded west, two states would be created, one pro-slavery in the south and other anti-slavery in the north to keep the balance of power.
Y7Bwr TIL: French was the official language of England for around 300 years.
j6ybR TIL Aroldis Chapman's 105 mph pitch isn't the fastest of all time. When Nolan Ryan played, pitches weren't clocked until they were 10 feet from the plate. So with the proper adjustments, if thrown today, Ryan's 100.9 mph pitch (in the 9th inning) in 1974 would've clocked at about 108.5 mph.
X7bk TIL the Sir Isaac Newton quote “If I have seen further than others, it is only because I was standing on the shoulders of giants,” in its original context, was an insult to Robert Hooke, a short and mildly hunchbacked scientist who claimed Newton stole his work from.