› added 4 years ago

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TIL: NASCAR is rooted in Prohibition bootlegging. They souped up stock cars to outrun the police and that led to competitive racing between gangs.

Read more prohibition.themobmuseum.org

via reddit.com

WkdN8 TIL that "thagomizer" is the unofficial name of the spike arrangement on the tails of stegasaurid dinosaurs in reference to a The Far Side cartoon. While unofficial, it is still used to describe the feature at the Smithsonian Institute, the Dinosaur Nat'l Monument, and in other literature.
a86OM TIL that five structure that were either directly inspired by or modelled after the London, Crystal Palace were also destroyed by fire.
kweW TIL Building a Toyota Prius is worse on the environment than building a regular car, due to mining of rare earth metals.
X0P TIL that the estimated costs for the 2012 political campaigns (6 or 7 billion) is almost 3 times the cost of sending the Rover Curiosity to Mars (2.5 billion)
4XeYb TIL that a guy called Xia Boyu lost both his legs climbing Mt. Everest after giving his sleeping bag to a sick teammate. Aged 69 he tried it again and became the second double amputee to scale Everest.