› added 7 years ago

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TIL that the Paul Hogan “shrimp on the barbie” TV commercials were very effective. Australia rose from #78 to #1 or #2 on Americans’ list of “dream vacations” after the TV ads began running from 1984 to 1990. They made Hogan famous in the US before ‘Crocodile Dundee’ (1986) made him a film star.

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8JpZ TIL in 1561 the citizens of Nuremberg witnessed an aerial battle of UFOs that lasted for over an hour, with strangely shaped objects fighting each other until one side was the victor. There was even a crash landing, whos wreckage was taken away in the end by a vessel
1aoW8 TIL that Tree Wells Are Responsible For 20% of All Ski Deaths. 90 per cent of tree well victims fail to free themselves unaided, which highlights the importance of riding with other people when venturing off piste.
1bBV TIL that before 1600, a game of chess could be won by capturing all of the opponent’s pieces, leaving a bare king; a style of play known as “annihilation”. In Medieval times, players considered it nobler to win by checkmate, so annihilation became a half win for a while, until it was abandoned.
WbKN TIL the tongue map that shows parts of the tongue responsible for different aspects of taste is the result of a mistranslation from a German paper and is not true
vPXa8 TIL on Nov 13, 1946, NY, pilot Curtis Talbot and scientist Dr. Vincent Schaefer, working for GE Research, released three pounds of dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) into the clouds at 14,000 ft. They looked back to see long streamers of snow. They had created the world’s first human-made snowstorm.