› added 3 years ago

158

TIL At the 1896 Olympics, American Robert Garrett decided to enter the discus event; “to have a try”. He had never thrown a regulation discus in his life. Attendees were laughing, as his first 2 throws narrowly missed hitting audience members. However, his 3rd throw won him the gold medal.

Read more preservationmaryland.org

via reddit.com

Y7RlZ TIL when the word "pussy" popped up in regular dialogue around the sixteenth century, it didn’t have a sexual connotation at all. It was used as a term of endearment to describe women in general and didn’t actually get sexual until the nineteenth century
gEm7 TIL that despite receiving scholarships from both Harvard and Yale, Nixon declined the offer so that he could manage the family store while his mother took care of his sick brother
QJB1E TIL that, in 2013, a 31 year old woman in New Zealand died from a cardiac arrhythmia linked to her habit of drinking 6-10 liters a day of Coca-Cola.
7r7e7 TIL there's a hotel in Sweden that requires fire alarms despite it being made entirely of ice
NepJ TIL Chinese guerrillas during WWII were given bags of flour, mixed with the powdery white high explosive HMX, to bypass Japanese checkpoints. The resulting mixture could safely be cooked into pancakes and eaten. Leftover dough and pastries could still be used as explosives. Code name: “Aunt Jemima.”