› added 11 years ago

277

TIL that the owner of a Utah video store was able to beat an obscenity charge over movies he rented out after his lawyer obtained data from cable and satellite television providers showing that area residents were disproportionately large consumers of pay-per-view pornography.

Read more nytimes.com

via reddit.com

P1NJO TIL the White House was open to the public until the early 20th century. In 1829, 20,000 citizens followed President Andrew Jackson back after his inauguration. The rowdy crowd packed the White House, forcing Jackson to flee to a hotel. Aides eventually lured them out with tubs of whiskey and OJ.
rlnM TIL that Angkor Wat in Cambodia is the largest religious structure in the world. It is 80 times bigger than St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, and at least 3.5 times bigger than the Vatican City itself.
JPn1 TIL: In 2007, a 55 year-old Slovenian man swam the Amazon, 3,274 miles, non-stop over 66 days. When told that his daily intake of two bottles of wine should be lessened for his health, he responded “I have to drink, I have to swim-I am Martin!”
AN0gB TIL that in 2014 researchers at MIT conducted a study that found participants were capable of extracting a picture's conceptual meaning after viewing it for as short as 13 ms, meaning the maximum framerate the human eye can see is about 77 frames per second.
grxGW TIL: A six year old boy is the youngest soldier of World War 2.