› added 5 years ago

170

TIL that reindeer regularly seek out psychedelic mushrooms. Tribes would also get high off the red-and-white 'shrooms, and some postulate that that is where the Santa myth came from.

Read more npr.org

via reddit.com

Y7vBA TIL 'the Midas touch' comes from Greek Mythology where Dionysus gave King Midas the power to turn everything into gold. King Midas soon hated this power because he inevitably turned all his food and wine into gold.
LkoOZ TIL of Jennifer Asbenson, a woman who survived an encounter with a serial killer, Andrew Urdiales. He assaulted her, bound her, and put her into the trunk of his car. She broke free and ran away. He chased her with her a machete, but she signalled a passing truck and escaped. Urdiales had 8 victims.
BY8x TIL that the US government during WW2 asked the press to avoid discussing “polonium, uranium, ytterbium, hafnium, protactinium, radium, rhenium, thorium, deuterium”. Only uranium was secret, for the Manhattan Project, but was listed with the other elements to hide its importance.
M5o0 TIL the Larry the Lobster sketch on SNL where Eddie Murphy asks the viewers to call-in to spare Larry’s life caused such a spike on phone networks that AT&T established communication with TV networks so that they could be warned of potentially disruptive future events. It remains in use to this day
kJpX1 TIL about The Crash at Crush, a staged train collision in Texas on September 15, 1896, attracting 40,000 spectators. Intended as a publicity stunt, the event turned tragic when a boiler explosion killed three people and injured many. It remains an infamous moment in Texas history.