› added 7 years ago

98

TIL I learned of Grandma Gatewood who hiked the 2,200 mile Appalachian trail at 55 bringing only Converse shoes, an army blanket and a plastic shower curtain after reading about it in a magazine and telling her children she was going for a walk. She hiked it again at 72 and 75.

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PYb7e TIL that when Michelangelo painted “The Last Judgement” on the Sistine Chapel, one of the Pope’s chamberlains, Biagio da Cesena, commented that the painted belonged in a brothel, not on sacred walls. Michelangelo painted him as Minos in hell, with donkey’s ears, and a snake biting his penis. NSFW
x6vOb TIL about the Personal Rescue Enclosure or "rescue ball", a 36 inches (91 cm) sphere intended to protect an astronaut in space in case they had to leave the Space Shuttle; another suited astronaut would then carry the sphere. It was developed in the early days of the Shuttle program but never flown.
Xger TIL in 1987 a former airline worker shot his boss mid-flight, causing the stewardess to tell the pilot “we have a problem”. The pilot asked “what kind of problem?”, and at that moment the man shot the stewardess dead and announced “I’m the problem” before murdering the pilots and crashing the plane
rRDnd TIL of the Goldwater Rule, which keeps psychiatrists from commenting on public figures.
b9kEp TIL that Hugh Laurie struggles with severe clinical depression. He first became aware of it when he saw two cars collide and explode in a demolition derby and felt bored rather than excited or frightened. As he said: “boredom is not an appropriate response to exploding cars".