› added 3 years ago

159

TIL there is a special mud collected by one family from a secret location that is used by the MLB and NFL to prepare all game balls. After Roy Chapman was killed by a baseball pitch in 1920, the MLB made it a rule to prepare all new balls with mud to remove their shine and improve grip.

Read more si.com

via reddit.com

Lk1V0 TIL — Pommer’s Law, one of the "Laws" of the Internet, states: “A person's mind can be changed by reading information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.”
kJ5Gg TIL Roland Ratzenberger died in a F1 crash in 1994 measured at 500g—the highest g-force for a crash in F1. However, the very same weekend Ayrton Senna died and his death was overshadowed.
JYPb1 TIL that ancient Greek historian Polybius came up with a cyclical theory of government (anacyclosis), where governments start off as monarchies, the final stage is ochlocracy, when a democracy degenerates into chaos and mob-rule. Then the cycle resets itself.
neQwW TIL that in 1769, the Royal Society issued a series of tests to ensure Mozart was actually 8. Daines Barrington, who conducted the study, was convinced after seeing Mozart abandon his harpsichord in the middle of playing to chase a cat; they could not 'bring him back for a considerable time'.
E1nB0 TIL During the final hours of the music festival "Woodstock 99" a peace promotion organization handed out candles to the audience to create a candlelight vigil for the final hours of the festival. The audience used the candles to set fire to an audio tower and start bonfires.