› added 12 years ago

146

TIL that 1 in 8 people who have ever lived are alive today

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OoWpe TIL Japan is the second largest music market in the world after the US, in spite of not being a huge population. Physical sales are still huge there, with more record stores than the US.
awlLM TIL that in 1988 the UK banned a song for saying two groups of Irish people had been tortured into wrongful convictions. 3 years later it was found to be true and they were released.
LkLyV TIL about a beauty contest held in Singapore in 1998, which awarded 60% of the marks for knowledge of the internet.
x6aQ0 TIL that the Convair Model 118, a tentative flying car from 1947, was shelved because its prototype crashed when a test pilot mixed up the flight engine's fuel gauge with the road engine's and didn't see the former run out. While he survived, this killed interest in the project.
NXEQ8 TIL that because Paris is so romanticised in eastern cultures, travellers to the city - especially from Japan and China - can end up experiencing an intense culture shock that can cause anything between vomiting to actual hallucinations. The effect has its own name - Paris Syndrome