› added 5 years ago

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TIL: In 2010 competitive swimming banned polyurethane suits in swimming that could reduce drag up to 8%, after records were broken in droves. The thin layer of fabric was made up of tiny bubbles that trapped air and actually made the swimmer float higher in the water.

yVdxl TIL That there is a small island in the South Pacific, where villagers worship a mythical American WW2 veteran named John Frum, believing that he will bring them material wealth one day.
16614 TIL when the termite queen dies, the pheromone she used to block reproductive development in other termites is no longer produced, and then a new queen develops .
4gK6 TIL that if you finish the incredible hard video game Ghosts n’ Goblin, you will receive a message at the end that all was just an illusion and you will be forced to start at the very beginning of the game again. Only after playing through the second time you will see the real ending.
p8Jn4 TIL about Rachele Gilmore, an understudy in the Metropolitan Opera. With only a couple hours notice, she was told she would be making her debut in Offenbach's "Les Contes Hoffman". That night she hit an A-flat above high C, breaking the record for highest note ever sung at the Met.
mx05P TIL in 1518 a "dancing plague" broke out in Strasbourg. Dozens of people started dancing for no apparent reason, some to the point of exhaustion and death. Some historians have attributed the plague to the accidental consumption of a fungus that contains a compound structurally similar to LSD.