› added 12 years ago

116

TIL the 100,000th U.S. Patent was a Horse Sun Bonnet.

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N7kOb TIL despite our thinking of the Big Bang as the universe’s “let there be light” moment, light did not exist until 240,000-300,000 years later.
QN9ba TIL Saturn, the 6th planet from the Sun, has a giant 6-sided polygon (larger than the Earth) situated at its north pole. Coincidence?
x6jJ5 TIL that Japanese actor Bandō Mitsugorō VIII claimed to be immune to fugu kimo, naturally toxic pufferfish liver. He ate 4 portions in a restaurant with his friends in Kyoto and died 8 hours later.
neYoP TIL in 1985, an icebreaker ship was used to save 2000 beluga wales which were trapped in a small area by a swath of ice too wide for them to cross under in one breath. The wales did not want to follow the ship through the channel until they started playing classical music over the loudspeakers.
OG087 TIL of Nakahama Manjirō, a 14-year-old fisherman who was shipwrecked on an island with four friends. They were rescued by an American whaleship, who took them to Honolulu, where his friends stayed. Manjirō continued on to Massachusetts and become the first Japanese person to land on mainland USA.