› added 7 years ago

113

TIL Gerald Blanchard, a sophisticated criminal mastermind, was facing a sentence of 164 years but reduced it to 8 by revealing where he kept the Star of Empress Sisi, a priceless ornament worn by Elisabeth of Bavaria which he stole a decade before from Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

awpZN Today I learned that a certain portion of the population will consistently feel the urge to defecate shortly after walking into bookstores or libraries. Named after the otherwise-unheard-of woman whose confession to a Japanese book magazine made it famous, it's known as the Mariko Aoki phenomenon.
86AV TIL the oldest living plant is at least 43,000 years old
4kp4X TIL in September 2011, Steve "Stare Master" Stagg lost to Fergal "Eyesore" Fleming in a staring contest after 40 minutes and 59 seconds, shattering the Guiness World Record of 17 minuets.
QOKe TIL that the children’s TV show Thomas the Tank Engine had an episode where an engine was dismantled and turned into a generator behind a train shed, alive and aware of what was happening to him.
BAXD TIL: Seventeen minutes of lost footage from 2001: A Space Odyssey was recovered from a Kansas salt mine