› added 5 years ago

75

TIL fear of the unknown is the driving force behind many anxiety disorders

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via reddit.com

X9KQ TIL that a “white elephant gift exchange” takes its name from the legend of the King of Siam gifting rare albino elephants to those who displeased him because the upkeep costs would financially ruin them.
VMrk0 TIL that it takes only 8-minutes for sunlight to reach the Earth, but can take up to 170,000 years for it to travel from the Sun's core to its surface. This is because the photons travel in a nonlinear path known as a random walk process - looks pretty similar to a convoluted zig zag.
E1J9o TIL that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not free slaves living in Tennessee (or any other state under Union control).
mxmM TIL Sugar Ray Robinson killed a man in the ring. The man he killed was saving up money to buy his mother a house. As a result, Robinson gave the earnings of his following four fights to that man’s mother.
AOMa TIL that in 1981, the Russians successfully landed on the surface of the hottest planet on our Solar System, Venus. The Venera 13 probe later returned the first color images of the surface of Venus.