› added 11 years ago

174

TIL that it is by pure coincidence that we exist on a planet and in a time when our star is covered exactly during a total eclipse. No other known planet has total eclipses and at some point in the future they won’t occur on Earth either.

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l7lwa TIL For centuries the Romans used a period of eight days in civil practice, but in 321 CE Emperor Constantine established the seven-day week in the Roman calendar and designated Sunday as the first day of the week.
9kb6 TIL that by telling people about your “next big idea”, you lose all motivation to deliver it
yVQdv TIL Charles Burgess Fry most famous for captaining the English cricket team has also appeared in an FA cup Final for Southampton and equalled the world record for long-jump. Fry also published 9 books and was given the rank of captain in the RNR and also reputedly turned down the throne of Albania
VM7rZ TIL there is a tower made out of skulls in Serbia
GYEAg TIL "hermetically sealed" is named after Hermes Trismegistus who was into alchemy and supposedly found a way to make a glass tube air tight.