› added 8 months ago

59

TIL Dublin is the Irish name equivalent of Blackpool.

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5Yllp TIL that Lee Richmond, the first Major League pitcher to throw a perfect game (in 1880) once had a physics professor explain to him that a curveball couldn't exist, and it was only an optical illusion. In response to this, Richmond invited the entire faculty to watch him pitch.
4RRb TIL during the Cuban missile crisis a Soviet Submarine came under attack from depth charges, the captain assumed WW3 had started and prepared to launch a nuclear weapon, his executive officer overruled him. It turned out the depth charges were training rounds being used to signal them to surface.
7xQL TIL that almost all wasabi sold in the US is just mustard and horseradish.
E1jeP TIL Cleopatra often used clever stagecraft to woo potential allies. For example, when she met Mark Antony, she arrived on a golden barge made up to look like the goddess Aphrodite. Antony, who considered himself the embodiment of Dionysus, was instantly enchanted.
ABLo TIL that Canada accidentally signed in the wrong spot on the Japanese surrender treaty at the end of WWII, messing up the order of the document.