› added 10 years ago

241

TIL almost all of The Hobbit’s character names were taken out of an old Icelandic poem “Dvergatal”

Read more tolkiengateway.net

via reddit.com

DDxe TIL: Real life castaway drifted into the Pacific Ocean for 13 months surviving off rainwater, fish, and sea turtles. Several large ships saw him but refused to help him. He eventually drifted to land.
O0B6 TIL a teenage model in the 1920s was the inspiration behind 15 of some of the most iconic statues in NYC. Her career destroyed in 1922 by a murder mystery and scandal,she attempted suicide, was admitted to a mental institution where she spent 65 yrs and died in obscurity at the age of 105.
kED5 TIL ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, the most energetic particles known to humans, all come from the same region of the universe and are caused by an physical process of unknown origin. The most powerful cosmic ray ever recorded carried energy of 300 billion billion eV.
5V94p Today I learned that the Pokemon anime was banned in Turkey in 2000 when a 7-year-old girl jumped off a fifth-story balcony, pretending to be a Pokemon, and ended up breaking her leg.
R71al TIL that a Latvian man evaded the Soviets in bunkers in the woods for the entirety of the 50 year Soviet occupation. He came put when the last Soviet troops left, age 70.