› added 11 months ago

48

TIL After water, concrete is the most widely used substance on the planet

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

YpD5G TIL the movie "Paranormal Activity" had a budget of only $15,000 but made $194 million. During the screening, people were walking out that one studio executive thought the film was bombing. They later learned that the viewers were actually leaving because they were too frightened.
8LxP TIL The etymology of the worlds most recognizable word, “okay / OK”, comes from a fad in the 1830s where people purposely misspelt “all correct” as “oll korrect”.
Oo141 TIL that Joseph Guillotin, who proposed the idea of the guillotine as a less painful method of execution, was born prematurely because his mother was in distress after hearing the screams of a man being tortured to death.
kE7E TIL that 27 million Soviet citizens died in WWII. By comparison, 1.3 million Americans have died as a result of war since 1775.
Vxr8 TIL there is a statistically significant increase in fatal car accidents in the days after daylight savings time, presumably due to disruption in sleep patterns.