› added 6 years ago

527

TIL that Dolly Parton's father paid for her birth with a sack of oats! She is the fourth of 12 children born to Robert and Avie Lee Parton of Sevierville, Tennessee. Her family was so poor that grain was all her father had to give the doctor who delivered her!

Read more countryliving.com

via reddit.com

4NOw TIL that Google has a secret laboratory in California that is developing, among other things, a space elevator.
ZpdyR TIL: Due to the “M” on tabbies foreheads, in ancient Egypt cats were called Mau. Cats learned this and began to “meow” in an attempt to mimic their names.
5YQKQ TIL that the original story for The Terminator came from Harlan Ellison ... or at least enough that a lawsuit forced James Cameron to acknowledge him in the credits.
QN7od TIL Canada had an ancient glacial lake the size of the Black Sea, contained by an ice sheet. When the ice sheet broke ~9000 yrs ago, the lake drained and dumped enough water into the Atlantic to raise sea levels by 3-9 ft, cool the entire Northern Hemisphere by ~3C, and turn Britain into an island.
PK7O TIL Landmines planted on the coasts during the Falklands War accidentally created penguin sanctuaries. The penguins are too light to detonate the mines, so they live and breed safely. The sanctuaries are so popular and profitable that there are efforts to prevent removal of the mines.