› added 5 years ago

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TIL that J.M. Barrie, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, G. K. Chesterton, A. A. Milne, and other notable literary figures played on the same cricket team. And they were terrible.

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nxRB TIL: The first guy to win Who Wants to be a Millionaire used none of his lifelines until the final question, where he called his dad. During the call, he told his dad he didn’t need any help on the final question, but he just wanted to let him know that he was about to win $1,000,000.
mxMZP TIL that the Constitutional Apportionment Amendment, which was the first article of what would eventually become the Bill of Rights, had a matematical error in it that would have made it impossible to enforce. Despite the error, the amendment came a state away from passing on two separate occasions.
PY5EG TIL that the Byzantine emperor Basil II captured over 15,000 Bulgars. He ordered 99% of the prisoners to have both of their eyes gouged out, and left the 1% with one eye left to guide the others back to their king. This is how Basil earned the title "the Bulgar Slayer"
XE6l8 TIL in Hindu Mythology there is a sun god named 'Surya' who rides a chariot driven by 7 horses depicting 7 colours of the visible light. There's a quote in 'Rigveda' (an ancient Hindu text) that day and night are caused by the Sun because of rotation.
W7XP9 TIL In recorded history, the deadliest tropical cyclone (over 300,000 killed in 1970) and the deadliest tornado (1,300 killed in 1989) both occurred in the country of Bangladesh