› added 4 years ago

278

TIL that a topless, laid-back statue of Abraham Lincoln stands at a federal court in Los Angeles; sculptor James Lee Hansen explained in 1941 that "from a sculpturing standpoint, it’s better to show the body without any clothes, [so] that’s why I left ’em off"

Read more smithsonianmag.com

via reddit.com

p80rQ TIL that 26 of the 50 best selling video games of all time were made by Nintendo.
JxR1 TIL That the execution of Nazi resistance leader Hans Scholl took just 52 seconds and that his last words before the guillotine blade fell were “Long live freedom”.
axBy TIL none of the ~35 people killed in the Salem Witch Trials died from burning at the stake. 19 were hanged, 1 was pressed to death, all others died in jail.
D1MnY TIL that the Queen actually has two birthdays- one that was determined by the commonwealth and changed to be the second saturday of June, and another that is her actual one which is the 21st of April. The birthday is changed in order to guarantee better weather for celebration
dDyy8 TIL that in 2004, two male chinstrap penguins, Roy and Silo, after performing mating rituals, formed a pair at New York's Central Park Zoo. One of them tried to hatch a rock, for which a keeper eventually substituted a fertile egg. Roy and Silo then hatched and raised the chick, named Tango.