› added 1 year ago

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TIL Dan Aykroyd, featured Ghostbusters cast member, truly believes in ghosts.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

neQaY TIL that starting about 7,000 years ago in Egypt, seasonal rains started moving south until rain only now falls regularly on the Ethiopian highlands. This shift forced nomadic cattle herders to settle along the Nile, leading to the first permanent Egyptian civilizations.
VMk5m TIL Phantom traffic jams (queues of traffic not caused by vehicle collisions or roadworks) are the result of a single driver braking suddenly, causing each successive car to break to a greater degree, creating a wave of stopped or slowed traffic.
wLZm1 TIL about Nameless, Texas. After submitting six names in order to get a post office and having all six rejected, citizens responded by stating, "Let the post office be nameless and be damned!" The government accepted this suggestion and the town of Nameless was born.
BQEk TIL that Nicolas Flamel, said in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to have been 665 years old and to have created the stone, actually existed, wrote about alchemical secrets, and would have been ~665 years old when the book had been written if he did not die.
ewDn TIL Stephen Colbert is deaf in his right ear, lost his parents and two siblings to an airliner crash in 1974, used to play Dungeons and Dragons, and briefly fronted a Rolling Stones cover band.