› added 5 years ago

96

TIL there's a species of wild pigs with tusks that grow up and inwards, curving directly towards their forehead. If the male's tusks aren't worn down by regular use, they will grow until they pierce the skull, killing the boar

yQgMJ TIL comedian Hannibal Buress paid a man $500 to attend a movie premiere for him, even though he looked nothing like him. The man walked around, took selfies with fans, and did an interview on camera.
WmKX TIL Danish philosopher Søren Kirkegaard published his works using amusing pseudonyms (perhaps best of all, Hilarius Bookbinder). Everyone in Copenhagen knew that Søren was the author, so at times he added to the title page of a book the scholarly note that it had been “edited by Søren Kierkegaard.”
YYlr TIL that submarines were originally detected by sensing the way they distort the Earth’s magnetic field. Now submarines have copper wires (with 4,000 amps running through them) wrapping the hull to demagnetize the ship to avoid detection.
YElB TIL That Punk’d was originally called Harassment and aimed at regular people. It was re-tooled after a couple sued for 10 million dollars after a prank with a fake dead body backfired
vQKx TIL the UK’s “God Save the Queen” was the first national anthem and was adopted by other countries such as Russia (until 1833), Germany (until 1918), Iceland (until 1944), Switzerland (until 1961), Liechtenstein and New Zealand. It was played twice before a Liechtenstein-England soccer game in 2003.