› added 4 years ago

61

TIL The Scopes "Monkey" Trial was staged to raise publicity for the town of Dayton, Tennessee. Scopes himself wasn't even sure if he had ever taught evolution before, but agreed to be a defendant and asked his students to testify against him.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

gRM9 TIL that both a new species of iranian spider, Filistata maguirei, and a genus of spider crabs, Maguimithrax, have been named after Tobey Maguire because of his role as spiderman.
wr58 TIL the X-Files episode ‘Home’ which was about a murderous inbred family was based on a story from Charlie Chaplin’s autobiography where a family introduced him to their quadruple amputee son by pulling him out from under a bed after which he “flopp[ed] around” while they sang and danced.
VMBAp TIL the "artificial banana flavour" we know today tastes more like the type of banana that was the main variety up until the 1950's, when it was wiped out by a fungus.
x6er0 TIL that "Language" and "Tongue" have the same word in Farsi which is Zaban or زبان .
b60M9 TIL: That a fetus can absorb its twin in the womb and it's known as "vanishing twin syndrome"