› added 9 years ago

81

TIL that Gibralter overwhelmingly voted out to not be a Spanish sovereignty twice.

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jNWQN TIL that before Europeans used the word "panther" for melanistic leopards and jaguars, it was a mythical animal, typically a big cat with a multicoloured hide. In heraldry it is depicted with coloured spots and flames coming from its mouth and ears, representing the sweet smelling odour of its roar.
9wNED TIL that President Ulysses S. Grant was nearly bankrupted by a Ponzi scheme a year before his death, and was saved from near-destitution by partnering with Mark Twain on his memoirs
XEkr6 TIL that chewing gum is a synthetic rubber - polyisobutylene - and can be recycled into things like shoes, coffee mugs, pencils and rulers.
7rgVP TIL That after winning the battle of Kleidion in 1014, the Byzantine Emperor Basil II took an estimated 14,000-15,000 prisoners, and punished them by sorting them into groups of a 100, then blinded 99 men in each one and left a single man in each with one eye so that he could lead the others home.
1aZgV TIL that John Wilkes Booth timed the deadly shot he fired at Abraham Lincoln with the funniest line from “My American Cousin,” knowing the laughter would drown out the gunshot. That line was “You sockdologizing old man-trap.”