› added 10 years ago

204

TIL nobody knows if frogs sleep. They also do not drink through their mouths, and swallow by pushing food down their throat using their eyeballs.

Read more burkemuseum.org

via reddit.com

98Ar TIL Lieutenant “Mad” Jack Churchill was the only soldier of WWII to kill a man with a longbow, and the first to go into battle with one in hundreds of years. He did this while also armed with a broadsword and bagpipes, which he played while killing enemies.
oBPgA TIL game designer Will Wright was inspired to create The Sims by the 1991 Oakland firestorm. He lost his home in the fire, and wanted to create a game that emulated his experience of rebuilding his life in the aftermath.
NXbj6 TIL: the Barbie doll is based on a German doll named Lilly that was based on a cartoon in a tabloid and initially sold to adults. Barbie and Ken were named after the children of Mattel's founders.
XEEaE TIL C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien had a writing club called the Inklings. They'd read works, and occasionally held a contest in which they'd try to go the longest reading Amanda McKittrick Ros's novels aloud without laughing.
VBGLm TIL Chinese eunuchs, who had both the penis and testicles cut off with a knife at once to qualify as high-ranking civil servants. Eunuchs were considered 'pure', while those under ten were termed 'thoroughly pure'. This system lasted from 146 AD until 1924, and the last Imperial eunuch died in 1996.