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96

TIL that in 67 AD, the Roman Emperor Nero participated in the Olympics, bribing the organizers to postpone the games for a year. Nero won every contest, even one which he left the race after being thrown off his chariot. He was removed from the list of winners after his death.

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VNLm TIL that an archaeologist and biblical scholar suggested that Jesus is a mushroom. “The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross argued that Jesus in the Gospels was in fact a code for a type of hallucinogen, the Amanita muscaria, and that Christianity was the product of an ancient ‘sex-and-mushroom’ cult.”
PYmGL TIL In 1895, workers finished the largest achromatic refractor that would ever be created: the Yerkes telescope. George Ellery Hale, an American astronomer, convinced the Chicago tycoon Charles Tyson Yerkes to finance the telescope
9Wam TIL that after his daughter’s killer went on the run, a 76-year-old hired 2 men to find, kidnap and turn him over to the authorities. The dad then received a one-year suspended sentence for kidnapping.
p8OZ TIL Some Paralympic athletes gain an unfair advantage by purposely injuring themselves on areas of their body with no feeling. It’s called “boosting” and the goal is to trick the body into triggering a kind of fight-or-flight response, and in doing so, increase performance.
xVJ5w TIL the Ethiopian calendar is 7-8 years behind the Gregorian calendar, meaning that the current year in that calendar is 2012. It has a thirteenth month, consisting of five days, or six in leap years. Also, the first day of the year is on September 11, or on September 12 in leap years.