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TIL the Khlysty, a Russian Christian sect, would engage at the end of their services in "group sinning" (a frenzied sexual orgy), to purify themselves from the lusts of the flesh. They believed that salvation required total repentance, which was far more achievable for one who had truly transgressed

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Vag4 TIL Vatican once invited Stephen Hawking to a conference where he had an audience with the Pope. Pope John Paul had trouble understanding Hawking and knelt down beside his wheelchair to hear him better, prompting one scientist to comment that “things certainly have changed since Galileo.”
rNNNM TIL why brain size doesn't correlate with intelligence. People have long been tempted to link brain size and cognition. The intuitive notion that a “big brain” means “more intelligent” was first threatened some time ago, when we discovered animals with larger brains than ours: elephants and whales.
xVOEk TIL that on May 11, 1995, during the first E3, Sega announced their new Saturn console would cost $400 and shockingly had been shipped to select retailers that same day. During their keynote, Sony announced the Playstation would launch at $300. Sega would exit the console business six years later.
d87Rd TIL that the city of Tromsø in Norway, which lies within the Arctic Circle and is famous for being a destination to view the Aurora Borealis, has an extremely mild climate for its latitude. This is due to the Gulf Stream (originating in the gulf of Mexico, thousands of miles away) warming it.
W7N44 TIL The song "Mele Kalikimaka" was written in 1949, 10 years before Hawaii became a US state