› added 3 months ago

5

TIL that Japan National Route 339 has a 300 m staircase that’s officially part of the highway

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via reddit.com

jvaa TIL Mary Anning, the first female paleontologist, is the girl referenced in the rhyme “she sells sea shells by the sea shore” after she discovered the first ichthyosaur at age 12 while collecting shells on the beach.
6EWOZ TIL red tape was actually used to bind government documents and you had to literally cut through them to get stuff done. And you can buy pieces of US red tape from the National Archives.
OPj1 TIL America isn’t the fattest country in the world. Mexico’s percentage of obese people exceeds America’s. Even then there are more countries with far higher obese percentages than the both of them.
XEd4r TIL when Luciano Pavarotti suddenly fell ill and was unable to sing Puccini's "Nessun Dorma" at the 1998 Grammys, Aretha Franklin filled in for him at “literally a moment’s notice" and sang an acclaimed rendition of the aria
9YQyX TIL: Sarah McLachlan was once sued by an obsessed fan because she used one of his delusional letters as the basis for her hit song "Possession." He committed suicide before it went to court.