Post * d8rE7 — Curious Curator

› added 6 years ago

556

TIL: When Dolly Parton first hosted an annual "Gay Day" at her theme park, Dollywood, the KKK and others threatened her over it. She still gets threats but this hasn't stopped the event.

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16pLX TIL that the first woman to sail around the globe was French botanist Jeanne Baret. She had to disguise herself as a man, and accompanied her collaborator (and secret lover) Phillibert Commerson on the Bougainville expedition. Together they discovered hundreds of new plants.

mxlbv TIL that the collapse of the USSR can be traced back to Anna Walentynowics, who spoke out about her boss stealing a workers’ bonus fund, got fired, workers struck in support of her, that escalated into the Solidarity movement, which led to the fall of communism in Poland and eventually Europe.

WkWrd Til in 2016 NASA sent Fungi from Chernobyl in space to study. This fungi eats radiation. The resulting data is yet to be published

XEy5j TIL when Jerry Lewis taught film directing at USC in the late ‘60s, George Lucas was one of his students and Steven Spielberg audited some of his classes. Lewis later screened Spielberg's short film Amblin' (1968) and told his students, "That's what filmmaking is all about."

5V08P TIL that the ancient Greeks used butter as a medicine and thought only barbarians ate it. In the Middle Ages, it was sometimes used as lamp oil but was mainly eaten by peasants. It only became popular among the wealthy when the church allowed its consumption during Lent.