› added 12 years ago

300

TIL that when people hear a recorded phrase looped numerous times, they begin to hear it as a song

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R7LOw TIL The largest pre-WW1 plane was built by Igor Sikorsky and was named after a Kiev Rus warrior. Sikorsky personally flew the plane from Petersburg to his native Kiev setting several world records.
d8vPB TIL the oldest mosque in Australia was built in the 1860s, set up by Afghan camel drivers in the middle of the South Australian desert. This was very early by Western standards - the UK's first mosque was built in 1891, while the US and France didn't have any mosques until the 1920s.
WNk4 TIL that the term ‘gargoyle’ only refers to carved stone figures in Gothic architecture that function as water spouts. Any other figure is considered a 'grotesque’.
eRpb TIL Teenager protested CIA drone strikes, killed by a drone four days later
XEGVk TIL Rachmaninoff created a piece based on an inversion of the melody of a Paganini's theme, by flipping the melody "upside-down", reversing its contour, so (almost) all the rising parts become falling parts.