› added 9 years ago

206

TIL Henry Winkler (‘The Fonz’) has dyslexia, has written an 18-book children’s series whose main character is dyslexic, and he plays the kid’s music teacher in a BBC TV adaptation. The teacher is based on the one person who provided him moral support in his own schooling.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

oRpAK TIL Xerxes, from 300, built two bridges made out of 300+ ships to help his armies cross between Abydos and Sestos in ancient Greece.
0dkMR TIL The Apollo 11 astronauts have a "circular" star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame. Neil Armstrong and co are recognised by Hollywood not for being the first humans on the moon, but for their "contributions to the television industry". [more in comments]
O4y7 TIL: that the phrase Graveyard shift used to be Gravy-eyed shift but was misheard as the former, it has nothing to do with Graves and refers to be blurry-eyed or tired
P1epZ TIL loneliness is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day
vPyER TIL that on dry, cloudless nights in the desert, water can freeze at temperatures as high as 41 degrees Fahrenheit, 5 Celsius. This is due to a process referred to as or "Night Sky Cooling" or "Radiative Cooling", and allowed desert dwellers to regularly make ice more than 2000 years ago.