› added 11 years ago

475

TIL that when Pope John Paul II visited Chile, he asked a crowd of tens of thousands to refuse greed and consumerism –to which they replied «yes», to reject the idol of power, «yes», but when he asked them to reject the idol of «sex and pleasure», the whole stadium replied an outright «NO!»

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via reddit.com

awDKM TIL that helicopters are used in cherry farming to dry cherries after it rains so they don’t soak in too much water and explode
0dQVp TIL the Tom petty song You Don't Know How It Feels originally was a B-side single about Petty being in love with multiple girls on different drugs and being a dealer. Warner Bros refused because it was too controversial
wGAo TIL that Fort Jefferson, a massive but unfinished coastal fortress in the Florida Keys, is composed of over 16 million bricks and is the largest masonry structure in the Americas
8aErP TIL that in 1906 Eleanor Roosevelt bought a chicken-wire cage to hang out the window of her New York City townhouse for her first child, Anna, to nap in—a practice known as “airing” for city dwelling children
YpmwP TIL Motorola was the first company to produce a handheld mobile phone. The first call was from Martin Cooper (Motorola) to his rival Joel Engel (Bell Labs). The phone weighed 1.1kg, had talk time of 30 minutes and took 10 hours to recharge.