› added 11 years ago

262

TIL that 27 U.S. states are at least partially north of the southernmost part of Canada.

PVaZ TIL Boos, ghosts from the Mario video game series, are based on co-designer Takashi Tezuka’s wife who is usually quiet but exploded one day, maddened by all the time he spent at work. Similarly, a Boo “shrinks when Mario looks at it, but when Mario turns away, it grow[s] large and menacing.”
Z8PG4 TIL about Adam-ondi-Ahman, a historic site in Daviess County, Missouri, about five miles south of Jameson. According to the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints it is the site where Adam and Eve lived after being expelled from the Garden of Eden.
PLJg TIL, one man, Stanislav Petrov, effectively saved the world from nuclear war by not telling his superiors of his system reporting a nuclear attack by the US. The system had malfunctioned.
d8xaj TIL The 1877 novel Black Beauty was a watershed for the recognition of animal cruelty, especially horses, as an important issue. It spurred reforms in both the US and England, leading to the abolishment of the “bearing rein”- a cruel Victorian device that severely damaged the necks of horses.
W7N19 TIL that since 1953, a Italian regional bank called Credito Emiliano has accepted giant wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese as collateral for small-business loans. Besides holding the cheese as insurance, the bank stores and ages the wheels in climate-controlled vaults for the duration of the loan.