› added 4 years ago

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TIL according to Māori legend, Split Apple Rock in New Zealand's Abel Tasman National Park, was split by two gods fighting to possess it. They broke it in half to compromise. Scientists believe that water seeped into a rock crevice and froze during an ice age, expanding and thus splitting the stone.

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Eevx TIL that in 2013 a grad student accidentally debunked an influential economics paper. He was trying to replicate the paper’s math for a school project and couldn’t, because it was completely wrong.
gK04 TIL that when the Cult Awareness Network attacked Scientology in 1990, the sect buried them in lawsuits leading to the networks bankruptcy. Scientology subsequently bought the network.
OYw6 TIL Edgar Allan Poe’s “The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” (1838) was about 4 shipwreck survivors stranded in a boat before they killed and ate a cabin boy–Richard Parker. In 1884, a boat was stranded with only 4 survivors. 3 of the men killed and ate the cabin boy, also named Richard Parker.
KOV9E TIL that one of the earliest examples of “OMG” being used was in a letter to Winston Churchill in 1917. “I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis—O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)” – Lord Fisher
nWgQr TIL there is a panda in china called Hua Hua who's popularity caused increased amounts of tourism in the Chengdu panda base with tourists waiting for hours to simply get a glimpse (she also has developmental delays which makes her fluffy and extra round)