› added 4 years ago

51

TIL "Aladdin" and "Ali Baba" were not part of the original One Thousand and One Nights; they were added to the collection by a French translator, who heard them from a Maronite storyteller.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

GPWJ TIL that watching people walk was America’s favorite spectator sport in the late 1800’s.
QJB8e TIL The scene in Jaws where Matt Hooper is attacked in the cage was actually performed by a 4'9" horse jockey in a smaller cage to make the sharks look bigger.
l7pKa TIL that the Russian Soyuz rocket, which has been in service since 1963 and has a success rate of 98%, begins its ignition process by firing wooden sticks inside the combustion chamber. While not quite as simple, it's essentially huge wooden matches and it's extremely reliable.
jNeEN TIL that the Unabomber was a victim of MK-Ultra.
OGeoR TIL: Illustrator W.W. Denslow was best known as the illustrator of the original L. Frank Baum Wizard of Oz books. But Denslow also created the comic strip Billy Bounce: One of the first to feature a hero with super powers. Denslow made so much money he bought an island and crowned himself king.