› added 11 years ago

85

TIL When challenged to prove her claims, a proponent of Breatharianism (living without food or fluid of any sort) lasted four days before suffering acute dehydration

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NnPQ TIL that the Greeks started the tradition of putting candles on cakes. To honour the moon goddess Artemis, the round cakes symbolised the moon, and the candles were the moonlight
4k45N TIL the US government in the 1930's tried to make a canal called the "Cross-Florida Barge Canal" that cut through the Florida peninsula to create a shortcut from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. It was going to have a series of locks like the Panama Canal. It was shut down by Nixon.
gMdwL TIL Adolf Hitler, JRR Tolkien, and Anne Frank's father all fought in the Battle of the Somme
l7xQB TIL that Napoleon was an ethnically Italian and was above average in height for his time.
nW9Qo TIL a study found that George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire contains over 2,000 named characters with over 41,000 interactions b/w them. Yet the most prominent characters avg out to have only 150 others to keep track of, which is the same number the avg human brain has evolved to deal with.