› added 7 years ago

356

TIL The sound made by the eruption of Krakatoa was so loud that if it was to happen in Ireland, it would sound like cannon fire in New York City.

Read more kottke.org

via ift.tt

grE1A TIL that Koji Kondo, the composer and sound director of the first game of the franchise The Legend of Zelda, had to give up the idea of using Maurice Ravel's Bolero as the soundtrack for the game, as the work was not free of rights then.
e9mg TIL: In 1976, Eric Clapton made a speech at a concert to vote for Enoch Powell to stop Britain from becoming “a black colony”, to “get the foreigners out, get the wogs out, get the coons out”, and repeatedly shouted “Keep Britain White”. Rock Against Racism was formed, in response.
Wk4VN TIL That George Bonga, the first African-American born in the territory that became Minnesota, was also legally the first white person to be born in the state as all non-natives were legally categorized as white
Men6K TIL that for people that associate their personality with a brand, that if that brand has negative information come out about it, it hurts the person's self-image as much as if they'd had a personal failure.
eee6 TIL two Christian monks smuggled silkworms out of China in bamboo canes. Those silkworms were used to give the Byzantine Empire a trade monopoly in Europe, which became the foundation of their economy for the next 650 years.