› added 6 years ago

300

TIL that Steve Irwin's father refused a state funeral for his son because in the words of his son, he was an "ordinary bloke".

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4XAYw TIL Ice Cream sundaes were invented when it became illegal to sell ice-cream sodas on a Sunday in the American town of Evanston during the late 19th century. To get around the problem some traders replaced the soda with syrup and called the dessert an "Ice Cream Sunday."
aGoN TIL that the Schwarzschild Radius is the size an object is compressed in order to make it a black hole. Earth’s Schwarzschild Radius would be compressing it to 8.7 mm, which is roughly the size of a peanut.
oBDA TIL The cost of a 30-second Super Bowl commercial increased from $37,500 in 1967 to $900,000 in 1994. That was an increase of 2,300 percent. The cost for an ad in 2009 was $3 million, which represents an increase of 233 percent since 1994.
9YLGM TIL 3 men were shipwrecked in the south Pacific; buoyed by life vests, they swam to the deserted island Fanadik. After 3 days on the island, a US Navy plane spotted a fire the men made and then saw the men waving life vests next to palm fronds that spelled H-E-L-P.
Ooyv6 TIL that Geoffrey Tandy, a marine biologist who specialised in cryptogams (algae, moss, etc.), was recruited to a secret British codebreaking organization during WWII because the Ministry of Defence confused “cryptogamist” with “cryptogramist.” Tandy ended up helping to crack the Enigma code anyway.