› added 4 years ago

39

TIL that few months after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The holiest place for Muslims Masjid-al-Haram (Kaabah) was seized by insurgents (and their leader claiming he is the "Mahdi"). After 14 days of fighting and negotiations with Saudi clerics, the Saudi army finally gained control.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

JdO1 TIL, in the early 1900s engineers actually reversed the Chicago River’s flow. It still flows in the opposite direction.
6EAQm TIL Crocodiles are the ultimate survivors. Having arisen some 200 million years ago, they have outlived the dinosaurs by some 65 million years. Even humans, the most fearsome predators ever to stalk the Earth, have failed to force into extinction any of the 23 species of crocodilians.
gKp7 TIL Geneticists have figured out the time that evolving humans lost their primate body hair by using mitochondrial DNA to calculate the date that head lice evolution diverged from that of public lice.
QNdYe TIL After losing the 1960 Presidential Election, Nixon ran for governor of California in 1962 and lost, leading to his "last press conference" where he said "you don't have Nixon to kick around any more, because gentleman, this is my last press conference." He would win the presidency 6 years later.
QJR1d Today I learned that the country with the highest average male height is Montenegro at 6 foot 0 inches