Post * Wrg8 — Curious Curator

› added 9 years ago

214

TIL Costa Rica is the only Latin American country to ban hunting for sport

Read more

ne5Jd TIL Japanese writer Kōbō Abe wrote surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society. His experiences in Manchuria deeply influenced his writing, imprinting terrors and fever dreams that became surrealist hallmarks of his works

rN5N4 TIL The word “ham” (as in HAM Radio) is not an acronym. In the early days of telegraphy & radio comms, professional operators would refer to amateur operators as “hams”, implying their incompetence. The slur was eventually forgotten and the amateur radio community widely adopted the term “HAM Radio”

p0NQ TIL: Rather than building up, millionaires in central London are building down, creating mega-basements. Nicknamed “iceberg homes” because there’s more square footage under the ground than above.

pYr1A TIL a victim of the SS Atlantic wreck was found to be a woman disguised as a man. A great favorite among her shipmates, one remarked "I didn't know Bill was a woman. He took his grog as regular as any of us, & was always begging or stealing tobacco. He was a good fellow, & I'm sorry he was a woman."

vkV8 TIL that starting in 1910, a series of books were published featuring a fictional boy-inventor by the name of Tom Swift. One of these books was titled “Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle.” Many years later, this led to the naming of the TASER that police now carry: “Tom A. Swift Electric Rifle”