› added 2 months ago

12

TIL that Bangkok is only a shortening of Thailand's capital city's real name. It's full ceremonial name is "Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit".

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

5YW6p TIL of Aleksandr Karelin who dominated Greco-Roman wrestling with a devastating reverse body lift, a Phd in Sports Science and an 888-1 record. In the 2000 Olympics, he faced Rulon Gardner, an US dairy farmer who wrestled cows. Gardner was so heavy, Karelin was unable to lift him and lost.
grm6X TIL on 30 1993, CERN opened the World Wide Web, "a wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents," when it established the very first URL, http://info.cern.ch. It's still there.
9YBpM TIL Australian gum-trees have evolved to have highly flammable leaves and bark to encourage bushfires. The leaves and bark are full of oil, making bushfires spread easily and quickly.
grv7b TIL a basking shark capsized a sailing boat and drowned 3 people
P6xG TIL In 1977, Maureen Weston of the U.K. voluntarily stayed up for a whopping 449 hours(18 days), and made it into the 1978 Guinness Book of World Records. But because staying awake for such long stretches poses so many health risks, Guinness chose to no longer acknowledge sleep deprivation records.