› added 13 years ago

172

TIL that a common swift (bird) can spend 2-3 years in the air without interruption

Read more commonswift.org

via reddit.com

VMVR0 TIL Some of the most famous Egyptian Pharaohs weren’t found in their tombs. They were hidden in two main caches by priests 3000 years ago and discovered in the late 1800s.
Vj5m TIL Abraham Lincoln once gave a speech in Bloomington, Illinois so captivating that it caused every single reporter present to forget to take notes. There is no copy of this speech in existence, and we can only guess at the content. This speech is known as Abraham Lincoln’s ‘Lost Speech’.
rNna0 TIL the interesting number paradox, which suggests that if we classify natural numbers as "interesting" or "uninteresting," a contradiction arises: the smallest uninteresting number becomes interesting simply by being the smallest in its set. This implies that every natural number is interesting.
e0Ep6 TIL Scotland has a national elephant polo team.
PY6jw TIL that acclaimed UK/US author Salman Rushdie, who went into hiding for 10 years after Iran issued a death warrant against him for writing "The Satanic Verses", spent much of that time playing Super Mario Bros. The game's influence can be seen in the two children’s novels he wrote for his sons.