› added 9 years ago

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TIL in 19th Century France the skeleton of a 3.5M (11'6") tall neolithic human was discovered and scientifically examined

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bal7 TIL that Jimmy Carter saw a UFO in 1969. He was so impacted by it that he promised to disclose every piece of information about UFO sightings if he became president. However, after being elected, he distanced himself from disclosure, citing “defense implications”.
ZpJeY TIL in 1979, LA-based punk band X were at a nightclub covering a Doors song. Unbeknownst to them, Doors’ organist Ray Manzarek was in the audience. That night, Ray became their producer, and together they made the album "Los Angeles" - which is now ranked as one of the greatest ‘80s of all time.
wLEb8 TIL Julie d'Aubigny was a 17th-century traveling swordswoman. Among her other exploits, when her female lover was sent to a convent, she also entered the convent, stole the body of a dead nun, placed it in her lover's bed, escaped with her lover and burnt the convent down.
wond1 TIL that Pope Gregory IX issued a Papal Bull declaring that cats bore Satan’s spirit, which subsequently led to huge numbers of cats being killed throughout Europe producing an indirect cause of the Bubonic plague spread by fleas on rats, which would otherwise have been hunted by the dead cats.
v1xWL TIL: the "legs" you see in old high speed footage of nuclear tests are a result of the explosion chasing down the wires of the support tower. The metal of the wire conducts heat faster than the surrounding air, allowing the pulses to move out ahead of the rest of the blast.