› added 6 years ago

247

TIL that after the American Civil war some 10,000 to 20,000 Confederates fled to Brazil, founding the city of Americana near São Paulo. Today their descendents called "Confederados" have an annual festival marked by Confederate flags, uniforms, hoop skirts, and foods like fried chicken.

b9am0 TIL that that the most expensive medicinal fungus in the world is found only in the Himalayas at an altitude of 3000 to 5000 meters. The yarsagumbas are known for their aphrodisiac property and for this reason they are popularly known as Himalayan Viagra. The cost per gram is about 100 $.
rRx1d TIL Frank Sinatra starred in a porno at the age of 19. Embarrassed about it Sinatra, "called his friends in the mob" to stop the movies release.
xVZPw TIL from 1906 to 1980, New Hebrides (today Vanuatu) was a French-British condominum, and both powers had separate administrations and courts. Colonists could choose to be under which law they wanted to live while natives were tried in their own laws
awoGN TIL of the word "inkhorn", a 16th century derogrity term for scholars who excessively and awkwardly borrowed words from Latin. They introduced short-lived words like ("devulgate, obtestate, deruncinate, subsecive") but also gave us everday words like ("Celebrate, expectation, ingenious, mundane").
Y7v5W TIL Ulysses S. Grant, who was running for a third term in 1880, led on 35 ballots for the nomination. It wasn't until James G. Blaine and John Sherman shifted their supporters toward James A. Garfield that Grant subsequently lost on the 36th ballot.