› added 1 week ago

7

TIL of the juiced ball theory, which suggests that the baseballs used in the MLB have been altered by the league to increase scoring. The theory came about in the late 90s and early 2000s, but the theory receded and has now been attributed to steroid use in the league at that time

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via reddit.com

8DaP TIL in 1958, Mao Zedong ordered the Chinese people to kill all the sparrows in the country to protect the rice crops. The effort backfired as, without the sparrows to eat insects, the locust population exploded and wiped out food crops, contributing to the starvation of tens of millions of people.
GGEJ TIL Italians are growing an outdoor cathedral, its roof & walls made of soaring branches
eNgn TIL the oldest person to have ever lived met Vincent Van Gogh and called him “dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable” and “very ugly, ungracious, impolite, sick”
JYQo1 TIL ice-cream manufacturers mix messed up batches of ice-cream in with chocolate ice-cream so they don't have to throw it away
MMKW TIL - “Gotham City” as New York’s nickname came from Washington Irving’s 1807 description of the city being inhabited by fools (after a town in England).