› added 1 year ago

122

TIL that Bolivia has the most official languages of any country in the world, with 37.

Read more guinnessworldrecords.com

via reddit.com

NXx9E TIL about The Changing Light at Sandover, an epic-length poem written over twenty years by a gay poet and his lover, based on dictation from spirits speaking through a ouija board
4knER TIL that while only 2% of tornadoes (out of ~1,200 per year) in the U.S. are classified as the highest EF4 and EF5's, they cause more than 65% of all tornado deaths. Also, tornadoes are a global phenomenon that occur almost exclusively between 20-60 degrees north and south of the equator.
78JpZ TIL that the reason why Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer doesn’t appear in more movies is because unlike the other reindeer, Rudolph is copyrighted by a Connecticut-based company. He was created by Robert L. May in 1939, for a story for a coloring book, which turned out to be a huge success.
WWKY TIL that the head baker on the Titanic got drunk while the ship was sinking, was the last one on the ship as he “rode it down like an elevator” into the water, and was able to tread water for 2 hours hardly feeling the cold thanks to the alcohol he imbibed which allowed him to survive.
oRMeA TIL “enshittification” was named 2023’s Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society. It describes the decline of platforms like social media and e-commerce: starting user-friendly, shifting to prioritize businesses, and eventually maximizing profits at users’ and customers’ expense.