› added 5 years ago

82

TIL that William Blake's poem "Jerusalem", considered the unofficial anthem of England and used in numerous English and British events, is inspired by the apocryphal story that a young Jesus travelled to what is now England and visited Glastonbury

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

8aN7b TIL Just 15 million years after the big bang the entire universe was effectively "habitable" as the cosmic microwave background radiation was warm enough to support liquid water everywhere. This period lasted for about 7 million years.
XEOw8 TIL the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea is 330 metres (1,080 ft) tall and was intended to be world's tallest hotel but these days it is the tallest unoccupied building in the world
ADNXo Of all the bodies in our solar system, the sun is probably the one we want to give the widest berth. It gushes radiation, and even though its surface is the coolest part of the star, it burns at about 9,940°F, hot enough to incinerate just about any material. As such, there are no plans to send a manned mission in its direction anytime soon (Mars is much more interesting, anyway), but it can't hurt to figure out at what distance a person would want to turn back. You can get surprisingly close.
rRrj1 TIL that some dogs won't eat food while their owners are away due to separation anxiety
ADJXx TIL a Danish company modified a version of thale cress (plant), that changes from green to red when being near landmines, because of the nitrogen dioxide gas released from landmines. This way you can detect landmines and save lives.