› added 7 years ago

196

TIL that when he was in hiding, Salman Rushdie immersed himself in Super Mario World, and joked that the best way to liberate Iran was to drop Nintendo consoles from the sky

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VkdD TIL the original founders/owners of Macy’s died on the Titanic and were the old couple in the movie who went to sleep as the ship went down.
78Zdx TIL the Canfranc Railway Station linking France with Spain was the second largest station in Europe at 240 meters in length when completed in 1928. It was a hub for trafficking of spies, refugees (including artists Ernst and Chagal), and more than 100 tons of gold during WW2.
8aQYG TIL in Guatemala an estimated 40-60% of the population still speaks a Mayan language
7rQBM TIL Yao Ming, famous for being one of the tallest player in the NBA, was born after the Chinese government "encouraged" the marriage of his parents; the country's tallest man and tallest female basketball player.
v19AK TIL the original "Echidna" was not an egg-laying mammal, but a legendary half-woman half-snake who was the mother of several Greek monsters, including the Hydra, Sphinx, Chimera, and Cerberus.