› added 9 years ago

190

TIL that the largest cavalry charge in history occurred during the Turkish siege of Vienna. Spearheaded by 3000 winged knights, 20,000 Polish and German cavalrymen charged and routed the Ottoman line and decisively ended the Ottoman threat to christian Europe.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

nW0Vd TIL that a runny nose when crying is caused by the drainage of excess tears into the nasal cavity. Tears, produced by the lacrimal glands above the eyes, normally drain through small ducts (lacrimal puncta) into the nose.
eDbk TIL that a chimpanzee Washoe, the first animal to learn American Sign Language, was able to combine the hundreds of signs that she learned into novel combinations that she hadn’t been taught and created herself. She also taught her adopted son some American Sign Language.
kJO4m TIL that chocolate is crystalline and therefore has six phases (different ways of arranging crystals). This is important for the production of glossy, brittle, melt-in-mouth-not-in-hand tempered chocolate.
XZNr TIL “Censored Eleven”; 11 cartoons by Looney Toons/Merrie Melodies from the late 1930s-early 1940s that were banned since 1968 for racism. All cartoons in topic. [NSFW]
dgjQ TIL diamonds are not actually rare and are only expensive because the De Beers group owns 90% of the diamond supply and keeps the supply in the market low to keep prices high. They invented the idea that diamonds are an old human tradition for marriage in the 1930s to sell to the American market.