› added 7 years ago

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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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GYXm1 TIL on Halloween 1992, BBC1 broadcast "Ghostwatch," a mockumentary horror film. Appearing to be a real news show, it caused public panic and outrage. It reportedly caused 3 premature labors, and BBC received 30,000 complaints. Despite having a cult following, it has never since been shown on UK TV.
evg4 TIL in 1861 a slave took over a confederate ship and delivered it to the Union. He was then given the ship to command during the Civil War.
4XeG6 TIL that “Idaho” was not a Native American word as originally thought but rather a made-up word. “To his horror, he found that he had been the victim of a practical joke. [He]learned, to his surprise, that the name did not mean, "gem of the mountains"...In fact, it did not mean anything at all.”
WGm8 TIL that the term “football” did not originally have anything to do with kicking a ball with your feet, but instead meant that a game was played on foot as opposed to on a horse, and hence was a game for “commoners”
XjGP TIL actors who play James Bond “give away their rights to wear a tuxedo in any other film” and that this was circumvented by Pierce Brosnan in The Thomas Crown Affair by wearing an unbuttoned shirt and a white bow-tie which wasn’t tied around his neck.