› added 1 year ago

88

TIL: The US National Anthem has 4 verses, but we only sing the first one

Read more amhistory.si.edu

via reddit.com

6EmEQ TIL that Danish priests still wear ruffs (those large frilled disk-like collars once popular across Europe centuries ago) today.
l7lx5 TIL that a yoga practice called khecarī mudrā consists of gradually severing part of the tongue in order to curl it back further than what is naturally possible until the practitioner can reach the inside of their own nasal cavity.
9wlPM TIL about Mark Twain’s proposed Philippines flag during U.S. territorial expansion: an altered U.S. Flag with black stripes instead of white and skull and crossbones instead of stars.
kJYrg TIL Although popular culture has them associated with medieval castles since the 19th century, underground prisons, dungeons and oubliettes were not as common in English Castles. Evidence suggests that rooms previously identified as dungeons, were in fact storage rooms for ice, or drainage pipes
yQPop TIL that the jeweled cockroach wasp injects a venom into a cockroache’s brain to make it lose its escape reflex, the roach then willingly follows the wasp to its nest, where the wasp lays an egg onto the roaches chest that will subsequently eat the weak-willed roach alive until a new wasp hatches.