› added 11 years ago

424

TIL that one of the most sacred shrines in Japan is torn down and rebuilt every 20 years. This has been going on for over 1,000 years, and some records indicate it may have started 2,000 years ago.

Read more smithsonianmag.com

via reddit.com

JrK4 TIL In Los Angeles you can serve a jail sentence in a much nicer “pay-to-serve” jails for $100. These allow day release for employment, food delivery, and better visiting conditions. Those that can’t pay as much clean the jail.
gMG0b TIL that Nintendo offered repair services on the Famicom up until 2007, and only stopped due to difficulty supplying parts for the repairs.
ep7pk TIL one of the nicknames of the Edmund Fitzgerald was 'the Titanic of the Great Lakes'. The ship famously sank in a November storm on Lake Superior. All of her 29 crew were lost.
LkGDP TIL that the oldest firearms still used by the American military are the M2.50 caliber machine gun and the Colt .45 M1911 pistol. Both were designed by John Browning more than a century ago.
wGB8 TIL The bezel on a dive watch only rotates counterclockwise- The reason for this is so that if the bezel is bumped accidentally during a dive, it will only move one direction, subtracting time from the dive and prompting the diver to end his dive early.