Post * ealJ — Curious Curator

› added 10 years ago

69

TIL The man responsible for introducing tobacco to Europe was imprissoned by the Spanish Inquisition because “only Devil could give a man the power to exhale smoke from his mouth.”

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P1KGn TIL In the 1960s, Washington D.C.'s poor areas were plagued by severe rat problems until Julius Hobson began catching them by trapping enormous rats, and attaching the cage to his car’s roof and drove to affluent districts where he warned of setting the rodents free, spurring rat control measures.

xVPd1 TIL that the Haast's Eagle went extinct 500 years ago, was the largest eagle to have ever existed, and evidence shows it may have occasionally preyed on humans.

m1lRM TIL 99 percent of the population in the United States and Europe are unable to see the Milky Way at night due to artificial light

xVNpg TIL about Basil II. He is said to have captured 15,000 prisoners and fully blinded 99 of every 100 men, leaving one one-eyed man in each cohort to lead the rest back to their ruler. The king of Bulgaria was struck down by the sight of his blinded army and died two days later after suffering a stroke

4kV5b TIL about the Nyckelharpa, the national musical instrument of Sweden. It is a string instrument with keys which, when depressed, serve as frets to change the pitch of the string. Dating back to c. 1350, it was recently used by composer Natalie Holt for the background score of the series Loki.