› added 9 years ago

158

TIL Big Ben Clock Towers time is kept accurate by adding or removing pennies on its pendulum changing the clock’s speed by +/- 0.4 seconds per day

Read more parliament.uk

via reddit.com

BgMbb TIL that Hawaii was a sovereign self-governing kingdom all the way up until 1893, totally unassociated with the U.S., until a coup d'état that year by 13 businessmen and 162 U.S. troops, with the openly stated goal of annexing the islands. (They succeeded.)
VBZpB TIL that Rome had a proto fire department called the Vigiles.
Rj18 TIL the actor Mahershalalhashbaz Ali adopted his current name upon converting to Ahmadiyya Islam. his birth name is Mahershalalhashbaz Gilmore.
RbW4 TIL “goodbye” is actually a contraction for “God be with ye.”
b96B0 TIL there's a lesser known third Opium War fought in 1967 on Laos