› added 12 years ago

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TIL: “Kiwi” is actually a branded name for the fruit when it was first introduced to the US. It’s actual name is “Chinese Gooseberry”

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via reddit.com

E1NKX TIL there was an experiment where three people, who each believed they were Jesus Christ, were made roommates at a psychiatric ward. At first, they argued over who was holiest and even fistfought. Eventually, each patient wrote the other two off as being crazy.
4XpWJ TIL that the idea of wooden stakes to kill vampires actually came from the use of wooden stakes to pin the dead down so they couldn’t escape the coffin. A measure taken during the New England vampire panic among other places. Though staked in the chest it had nothing to do with piercing the heart.
x6Ao1 TIL that in 2003, the Black Eyed Peas released a song titled "Let's Get Retarded” more commonly known by its clean version title "Let's Get It Started”.
APn7 TIL that the Mona Lisa has no clearly visible eyelashes or eyebrows. In 2007, an engineer used high resolution scans to show the painting was originally painted with clearly visible eyebrows or eyelashes and they gradually disappeared over time, possibly because of overcleaning.
mxMlY TIL Marie Curie's annex lab in Arcueil is sometimes called Chernobyl on the Seine. The lab closed in 1978 but radium has a half-life of 1,600 years, and there are traces of a uranium isotope at the Curie annex with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. The cleanup has so far cost about €10 million.