› added 9 years ago

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TIL that ‘boosting’ is a form of cheating in paralympics. Athletes with spinal cord injuries will do things like breaking bones (usually in toes), electric shocks (to feet/legs/scrotum/testicles), and more. This results in increased blood pressure which improves performance.

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Lamp TIL Beethoven was once challenged to an improvisation contest by a famous pianist named Daniel Steibelt, Beethoven took the piece Steibelt’s music was written on, turned it upside down, played it, then improvised on that and mocked Daniel through his own music. Daniel left halfway through.
wLYWo TIL that technically there is no city named Tokyo. Tokyo is a prefecture, something like a state, and not a city. Also, there is no city named Tokyo inside of Tokyo Prefecture.
v1LDj TIL that the US is in eternal battle with a flesh eating fly called the Screw Worm. Basically a maggot that burrow into live flesh, head first. There's a worm screw border guard at Panama, having mostly irradicating them in North America. Last US case in 2016. Yes, they will lay their eggs in you.
Oo7eY TIL the Wayside house in Massachusetts was home to three writers: Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Sidney
wL7NJ TIL of Otokichi, a Japanese sailor who was shipwrecked and drifted to the Pacific Northwest in 1834. He stayed with the native Makah tribe before the local British agent sent him to London. He then moved to Macao and worked for the British, only returning to Japan twice more (once in disguise).