› added 9 years ago

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TIL that cemeteries cause pollution of groundwater due to the decay of corpses

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via reddit.com

YpW8W TIL that the word "amok", as in "to run amok", is a reference to a Malay word meaning "to make a furious or desperate charge." It entered English usage after Europeah visitors to Southeast Asia reported it a as a psychiatric disorder (and it is still listed as one in the DSM IV).
dP17 TIL “The Most Interesting Man in the World” almost didn’t get the part. When told they were going with someone younger, his agent wisely said “How can the most interesting man in the world be young”. He got the part.
LNEv TIL that since 1997, a team of 50 people has been building a castle in France using 13th century construction methods.
Wwvd TIL that the population of Ireland still hasn’t returned to where it was before the Potato Famine
GYyjN TIL that the original radio broadcast War of the Worlds In 1938 did not induce mass panic across the US as widely believed and that the hysteria was actually just an early example of fake news being reported by the newspapers.