› added 12 years ago

100

TIL a German abbot wrote a book on magic in 1499. A century later, it was discovered to be one of the first books on cryptography, carefully encrypted disguised as a book on magic.

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b7nj TIL that Led Zeppelin was originally called “Lead Zeppelin” but they dropped the “a” because they didn’t want people to pronounce it “Leed Zeppelin”
6EaZ8 TIL the origin story for centaurs in greek mythology explains they were born because a deformed guy called centaurus(whose father got him by having sex with a cloud nymph faking as hera) had mated with magnesian mares.
nYO7 TIL Disneyworld has secret treasure hunts. You go to a little shop cart and get one of 5 treasure maps. You then search around Adventure land for hidden NFC readers that activate with your Passcard. One was in the gift shop and it activated a whole shipwreck show inside a fish tank!
47vb TIL that the influential American poet Walt Whitman’s collection of poetry,“Leaves of Grass”, was so controversial when first published in 1855 for its reference to open sexuality & homosexuality, that a major literary weekly publication recommended in its review that Whitman kill himself.
69eWJ TIL porcelain dentures included traces of uranium up until the mid-1980s, the idea was the fluorescence provided by uranium would better mimic the colour of natural teeth