› added 11 months ago

84

TIL that more people have been in space than have sailed non-stop around the world.

Read more capehorners.org

via reddit.com

D1L0g TIL Louis Theroux has a brother that looks and sounds just like him and also does documentaries.
xVRm0 TIL that Leonardo Da Vinci fully intended for his works to be published and left them to his pupil, who couldn't get through the writing and only managed to compile a treatise on painting in his lifetime, with the rest of papers sold off by disinterested heirs
gp8b TIL that it has been theorised that the Pillars of Creation, made famous by the Hubble Telescope, may no longer exist. They may have been destroyed by a supernova shockwave around 6000 years ago, but the light from this hasn’t reached Earth, so we won’t see it for another 1000 years.
ZpabB TIL about 'Hero Stones', memorials from ancient India commemorating warriors who gave their lives in battle. Usually reserved for people, the Atakur hero stone was dedicated to a king's favorite dog, Kali, who battled a wild boar. Kali succeeded in slaying the boar but died in the fight.
J1MAQ TIL about Janet Parker, the last person to die of smallpox in 1978. She worked above one of the last labs in its last months of permission to study the virus. The day Janet's viral strain was confirmed, Henry Bedson, the doctor in charge of the lab, took his own life.