› added 5 years ago

83

TIL The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake slightly altered the Earth's rotation, shortening the length of a day by 2.68 microseconds. It also caused the Earth to minutely "wobble" on its axis by up to 25 mm in the direction of 145° east longitude.

D1xwe TIL about the American town 'Merrymount', founded 1624. Named from slang at the time for 'illicit' forms of sex - the town rejected Puritan values welcoming non-Heterosexuals, freeing indentured servants and intermarrying Native Americans. Five years later it was invaded and razed to the ground.
KO6Gw TIL that the opposite of deja vu is jamais vu. It is most commonly experienced when a person momentarily does not recognise a word or, less commonly, a person or place, that she or he knows. This can be achieved by anyone by repeatedly writing or saying a specific word out loud.
ANpjo TIL Hitler loathed New Zealanders as a “lower form of human being”. At a speech given on 15 July 1925 he argued that New Zealanders lived in trees and ”clambered around on all fours”, having not yet learned to walk upright.
OGAO7 TIL Isabella Sanford, star of The Jeffersons, was actually twenty-one years older than her on screen husband Sherman Helmsley
nQNd TIL: Jason Lee of “My Name Is Earl” used to be a devout Scientologist, when he found out his first wife had read an anti-Scientology book he sent her a one-paragraph “disconnection letter” ending their relationship. As of 2016, Lee no longer practices Scientology.