› added 4 months ago

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TIL: Ukehi is a Japanese Shinto divination ritual that has 6 functions. To kill your enemies, manipulate the weather, animate living beings, predict an outcome, establish the will of kami, or ask for information. Normally it is used to ask a question. If nothing happens, the kami disapproves.

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woGbP TIL In Cheongju, South Korea, a gang of thieves rented a hotel and spent a month digging a secret tunnel to gain access to a nearby oil pipeline in order to siphon it. They've managed to dug 10 meters deep and reached the pipeline, but a police raid caught them before they could steal any oil.
loMEB TIL an actor in the 80s during a delay on the set took a gun loaded with blanks and after saying ”Can you believe this crap?” put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger as a joke, accidentally killing himself. A blank can kill you when shot at close range.
mxeVY TIL that owning a property doesn’t always guarantee that you own everything beneath the surface of that property such as oil, coal, or dinosaur bones. “Mineral Rights” can have a separate deed than “Surface Rights.”
vP5gx TIL of the Asiatic Vespers, in which king Mithridates VI of Pontus ordered all cities in Asia Minor (today's Turkey) to kill all inhabitants of Roman or Italian origin (around 80,000) on a predetermined day.
gM6k4 TIL Both George Lucas and Don McLean were fans of Weird Al Yankovic's "The Saga Begins" (a Star Wars parody of "American Pie"). McLean said that the parody's lyrics sometimes enter his mind during live performances and a Lucasfilm representative said "You should have seen the smile on Lucas's face."