› added 12 years ago

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TIL that Christopher Columbus correctly predicted an eclipse to trick the native inhabitants of Jamaica into giving him food and supplies…

ADjlx TIL about Izumi Sakai, the vocalist and de facto leader of the J-Pop band Zard. After she died from an accident while undergoing treatment for cancer, a posthumous single was released and used as a theme song for her favorite anime Detective Conan
9wLLX TIL In 2000, three Scottish sisters took out a 1 million pound insurance policy in the event one of them immaculately conceived the second coming of Christ. They paid £100 a year until 2006 when the insurance company canceled the policy.
VMxLk TIL: The 50 square-mile section of Yellowstone National Park that spills over Idaho’s border is a legal no-man’s land. It’s an isolated spot, one devoid of roads or any permanent human inhabitants. It’s also missing legislation to allow people to be charged with serious crimes.
0wXL1 TIL that many ancient statues weren't meant to be white. Over time, the paint on the statues wore off, and were completely colorless upon their discovery. This lead many sculptors to believe that the refined Greeks and Romans left their marble bare intentionally, creating a lasting trend.
oB0eY TIL about the Civil Cooperation Bureau, an innocuous-sounding civilian agency in apartheid South Africa - it was a actually a death squad responsible for a number of murders and controlled by the Minister of Defence, Magnus Malan