› added 1 year ago

105

TIL: Ireland moved a whole motorway for a fairy bush.

kAEg TIL in Arizona, the Superstition Mountains is the home of the Apache Thunder God who cursed the land by killing anyone who travels the mountain trying to find his gold. Deaths began as early as the Spanish explorers in the 1500’s and up to this day. Some of the corpses were found decapitated.
XEPxj TIL that an average NFL game has just 11 minutes of live play. The rest of the time is devoted to over 100 commercials, 17 minutes of replay and around 75 minutes is spent watching players, coaches, and referees essentially loiter on the field.
Om11 TIL that in 2002, the popular MMORPG Everquest was the 77th richest country in the world inbetween Russia and Bulgeria. Virutal internal markets and illegal online trading meant that the in-game country ‘Norrath’ had a Product Per Capita of $2266, more than India and China.
WgjB TIL “Prior to the first nuclear bomb detonation in July of 1945, isotopes such as strontium-90 and cesium-137 simply did not exist in nature.” Pieces of art and bottles of wine created before 1945 can be tested for cesium, if they contain traces of cesium they would almost certainly be fake.
dDm6r TIL Tolkien rewrote a small part of Hobbit when he was working on LotR, changed the part about Gollum betting the ring on question game and parting way nicely to getting angry over losing the ring. Because the ring used in LotR was supposed to corrupt the user with greed.