› added 12 years ago

97

TIL that British people used to have American sounding accents, not the other way around

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Oo5DY TIL that unnatural hair colors, including blue and purple, were briefly popular around 1913-14, but fell out of fashion when WWI broke out
AQZx TIL that after Conan O'Brien’s first show in 1993, he published a negative review of his own performance in the NY Times.
VO5B TIL In Australia, cavities in the ground left by fossils will sometimes fill with a liquid containing dissolved opals. When the liquid evaporates, the opal remains, forming opalised fossils. The best example of this is a 6m long Plesiosaur skeleton, completely made of opal (more sources in comments)
6EvNm TIL over 1000 toads exploded in Hamburg as a result of crows pecking out their livers: terrified toads puffed up to scare away their attackers but with a hole in their bellies & no liver, they swelled up to ~4x their normal size, their lungs burst and the rest of the organs shot straight out of them
69BXX TIL hippos have very little subcutaneous fat. Their 2,000kgs body is mostly made up of muscles, and 6-centimeter thick skin