› added 8 months ago

215

TIL Ghyslain Raza (the Star Wars Kid) began getting tutored at home because the school staff asked him not to return the following year after students started to tease or mock him which they saw as bad publicity. Although, he was able to move past it and now has a law degree & is working on his PHD.

Read more cbc.ca

via reddit.com

woLXE TIL that Bowerbirds have been observed creating optical illusions in their bowers to appeal to mates. They arrange objects in the bower's court area from smallest to largest, creating a forced perspective which holds the attention of the female for longer.
RJOQ TIL that Tarrare, a French soldier with polyphagia, consumed vast amounts of food and objects, including live animals, without every feeling full or gaining weight. His case is still considered a medical mystery.
VBvkZ TIL Nikola Tesla believed he received extraterrestrial signals in 1899 during experiments in Colorado. In 1901 he wrote he may have heard “the greeting of one planet to another” and thought the signals came from Mars long before radio astronomy existed.
BKVr TIL: That 432 people own half the land in Scotland.
grg17 TIL While nicknames in English are mostly derived from the beginning of a name (Benjamin to Ben, William to Will), nicknames in Spanish are normally derived from the end (Benjamín to Mín, Ramón to Món, Enedina to Dina).