› added 1 year ago

235

TIL that Leonardo da Vinci did not begin working on the Mona Lisa until he was in his 50s.

Read more artincontext.org

via reddit.com

1avAd TIL after Albanian citizens lost ~$1.2 billion (~$400 per capita) to Ponzi schemes in 1997, some of the losers started protesting against the government. The protests ultimately turned into a 6+ month civil war that toppled the government and killed 2000 to 3800 people.
jNnVn TIL That the U.S. has control over an island in the Indian Ocean which it got from the British who took it from Mauritius. It has a base on the island is named 'Footprint of Freedom' and the name of its camp is 'Camp Justice' while original inhabitants of the island are displaced from their homeland
Yp81r TIL about Salvinorin A, a dissociative hallucinogen found in the plant Salvia divinorum. Used by indigenous Mazatec shamans for spiritual purposes for thousands of years, it's currently being studied as a potential therapeutic agent, as it's in legal in most countries which facilitates research.
KeBQ TIL a study found that the costs of switching to clean energy from fossil fuels would be more than offset by the savings in reduced premature deaths from reduced air pollution
Me180 TIL that Aitzan Hasan, a Pakistani schoolboy died while preventing a suicide bomber from entering his school on 6 January 2014, single-handedly saving 2000 students.