› added 9 years ago

162

TIL when Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors & former teammate of Michael Jordan, was in college his dad was assassinated by extremists in Beirut. During a subsequent basketball game opposing fans chanted “your father’s history” while a teary eyed Kerr scored 20 points in the first half.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

jXBa TIL in 1986, when a five year old boy fell into a gorilla enclosure and lost consciousness, a large male gorilla named Jambo stood between the boy and the other gorillas in a protective gesture, even stroking the boy’s back. The incident helped create a positive public perception of gorillas.
PYKJV TIL there was a natural nuclear reactor in present-day Gabon that produced about 100kw of energy 2 billion years ago, running for thousands of years. This is the only known example of naturally occurring nuclear fission.
9w75D TIL that despite the popular belief that women weren't allowed to watch the ancient Olympics because the athletes competed naked, only married women couldn't actually attend the competition. Unmarried women were welcome and the priestess of Demeter even had a privileged spot
OmAa TIL Indiana Jones may have been inspired by American political scientist William Montgomery McGovern, who by age 30 had already explored the Amazon and braved uncharted regions of the Himalayas, survived revolution in Mexico, studied at Oxford and become a Buddhist priest in a Japanese monastery.
4k6ga TIL that in a cricket match in Bradford, England, all the 22 players involved were surnamed Patel as was the 15-year-old scorer