› added 43 minutes ago

TIL that the Olympic Games weren't the only athletic competition held in ancient Greece. Three other contests—the Pythian Games, the Nemean Games and the Isthmian Games—were also held. Together, these four competitions were known as the Panhellenic Games.

rRxPy TIL in 1963, George Blonsky patented a table that used centrifugal force to assist in childbirth. The expectant mother would be strapped down and spun at high speed, and the baby caught in a net.
BrkDD TIL of Unsinkable Sam, a ship’s cat who survived 3 ships’ sinkings during WW2, once on a German battleship before being adopted by British sailors and sinking twice more. The third time he was found clinging to driftwood, ‘angry but quite unharmed.’
N7M0N TIL that the construction of Brandenburg, the new airport in Berlin, is so behind schedule they will have to scrap 750 display screens which are now at the end of their life having being switched on for six years. Not a single flight has yet left the airport, and it may not open until beyond 2020.
DQKpD TIL that the movie character Raymond from the Academy Award winning movie Rain man was based on real life savant, Kim Peek. He could simultaneously read the left side and right side pages of a book at the same time and had complete memory of over 12,000 books.
MeXD8 TIL that the Burj Khalifa is so tall that inhabitants above the 80th floor have to wait 2 additional minutes to break their Ramadan fast compared to people on the ground, while people above the 150th floor have to wait an additional 3 minutes.