› added 4 years ago

106

TIL that the "Chinese Zodiac" isn't just 12, but 60 years, made up of two distinct cycles of elements and animals.

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rpV1 TIL that the highest grossing piece of entertainment of any kind, ever, with a gross of 5.6 billion dollars, is Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “The Phantom of the Opera”
rWbM TIL Young Benjamin Franklin was a street performer, composing songs, poetry, and prose about current events which he would perform in public and sell in printed form. His father convinced him to stop because of the stigma of buskers, which later contributed to his support of free speech.
oWE7 TIL in 1950, South Korea executed 100,000+ suspected Communists and Communist sympathizers - Moreso, among those slaughtered were 12 and 13-year old girls. Following the massacre, the bodies were thrown into the sea.
R5ndj TIL: Trees, signs, buildings near the Jack Daniel distillery look blowtorched because of the “angels share” of ethanol from the whiskey barrels (2% of the maturing whiskey that evaporates from the barrels) feeds a melanin-containing fungus called Baudoinia compniacensis (aka whiskey fungus)
b9KAQ TIL of Rebecca Twigg. After winning two Olympic medals in cycling, six world championships, and appearing in Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, and numerous commercials, Twigg abruptly dropped out of the sport, had trouble holding down a desk job, and has been living on the street for years.