› added 5 years ago

69

TIL Isaac Newton studied the occult and predicted the end of the world as we know it to happen around the year 2060. He believed humanity would then progress into an era of divinely inspired peace.

R70da TIL drug lord Pablo Escobar turned himself in to the authorities on the condition (other than not being extradited to the U.S.) that he would build the prison himself and choose his own guards. The "prison" also featured a football pitch, giant doll house, bar, jacuzzi among other amenities.
ZpylB TIL African wild dogs use sneezes to cast their vote on whether they are ready to begin a hunt. Researchers noted a minimum number of sneezes required to rally the group, with sneezes from dominant individuals worth more than other dogs.
P5Ae TIL in 1891, William Coley showed that spontaneous remission of cancer could be induced using toxins which model a bacterial infection. Despite treating over 1000 individuals and curing some patients with end-stage cancer, the last recorded use of this therapy was in China in the 1980s.
BO1x TIL the mascot of The Evergreen State College in Washington is the geoduck, a clam with a large phallic appendage, which thrives in nearby Puget Sound. In honor of its mascot, the school’s motto is “Omnia Extares,” Latin for “let it all hang out.”
OGxER TIL that in 1981, the magazine Locus butchered the title of Gene Wolfe's next novel "The Citadel of the Autarch" and announced that it would be titled "The Castle of the Otter". Wolfe found the mistake so funny he actually published a book titled "The Castle of the Otter" the following year.