› added 9 years ago

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TIL astronomer Ptolemy thought that the gods, out of curiosity/boredom, would peer down at the earth from between the spheres; when this happened, stars would slip out of this gap, flashing towards the earth. Shooting stars meant that the gods are now paying attention to whatever you would wish for.

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8aYa4 TIL that after WWII, a brief period of time, 1945 to 1952, was the only time when Japan was occupied by a foreign power in its entire history. Japan was under the sole control of the United States.
69bOW TIL that astronomers observed a spot on Jupiter between 1665 and 1713, but there were no further mentions of a spot until 1831. Scientists believe that the two spots were likely different phenomena, in which case the current Great Red Spot would only be around 200 years old.
8aRVV TIL The Tetris Company emerged from a Soviet agency. Today, it licences it's trademark and doesn't make the game anymore. Instead it sues people who make unlicensed clones.
oRVMR TIL Ferdinand Rudow was a German entomologist notable for the poor quality of his taxonomic work. Although he named almost 200 species of wasps, almost all of them have been synonymized with other species.
e0BO5 TIL Steven Bradbury, a speedskater and Australia’s first gold medalist in the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, won his medal by purposely going slower than the other 4 skaters and hoping that one or more of them would crash to secure at least a bronze. All four crashed near the finish line.