Fun facts!

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Francis E. Dec Esc. said:
The site of the Battle of Visby in July 1361 is our biggest source for what medieval infantry armor looked like. Visby was a total one-sided rout where veteran Danish and German men-at-arms completely slaughtered an inexperienced peasant militia of local farmers. Most medieval armor was used until it wore out and then scrapped, but most of the bodies found in mass graves at Visby were thrown in still wearing their armor. The reason for this is unclear, but it may have been because of the massive amount of bodies (2000+ have been found so far) and the heat of the July day making the bodies decay prematurely.
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It‘s also interesting because most of the dead were levies kitted out as cheaply as possible and asked to defend the walled town despite zero training. The Danes and Germans basically slaughtered them where they stood. A recent analysis of the dead showed that almost all of them had severe lower leg injuries, ranging from chipped bone, through breakages, and up to angled amputation.
Forensic analysis of the lower leg injuries showed that the attackers favoured an initial brutal strike at the lower leg (which untrained people tend to neglect) to immobilise, followed by ganking the victim on the ground at the attacker’s leisure.
This, in turn, proved that the attackers operated in a very open attack line rather than bunching together, as clumping would have interfered with the ability to use this tactic.
One of the burial grounds of the 2000+ dead is now under a major road, too.

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Cyclone Gudrun, which hit Sweden in 2005, felled approximately 75 million cubic metres of trees. The Swedes collected as many as they could to make the world’s largest woodpile. It needs to be watered to prevent spontaneous ignition and dry rot and has been in constant use ever since with no signs of running out any time soon. If you’ve bought anything wooden or chipboard from IKEA that was made in Sweden in the last 10 years, there’s a high probability it was sourced from this pile.

Oh, and the world’s largest freshwater arthropod is the Tasmanian freshwater lobster, which can grow up to three feet long and weighs up to fifteen pounds.
 
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SITHRAK! said:
Cats are the only mammals whose farts are always 100% silent.


Kurt Cobain loved Weird Al’s parody song ‘Smells Like Nirvana’ and declared “that’s how you know you’ve made it, when Weird Al rips you off”.
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Kurt Cobain had really good taste in obscure indie music, and I found out about Shonen Knife, the Pastels, and the Vaselines just because he loved them.

And if you don't know Shonen Knife, here's their utterly adorable cover of Top of the World by The Carpenters.

They're a Japanese pop-punk girl band but mostly write their own stuff and are obsessed with The Ramones. In fact, one of the names they've used is the Osaka Ramones.
 
AnOminous said:
Kurt Cobain had really good taste in obscure indie music, and I found out about Shonen Knife, the Pastels, and the Vaselines just because he loved them.
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Not to mention, he considered "Philosophy of the World" by The Shaggs to unironically be one of the greatest albums of all time. For anyone who's never heard of it, it's an interesting yet sad story. TL;DR is that a crazy dad had a revelation from a supposed fortune teller that his 3 daughters would be famous rock stars, so he pulled them out of school and forced them to start a band despite none of them knowing how to play instruments nor understand music. The album they released is a legendary cult classic:

 
Michael Jacks0n said:
TL;DR is that a crazy dad had a revelation from a supposed fortune teller that his 3 daughters would be famous rock stars, so he pulled them out of school and forced them to start a band despite none of them knowing how to play instruments nor understand music. The album they released is a legendary cult classic:
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To call it bad music is almost to dignify it because it isn't even music at all in any traditional sense. I kind of feel sad for these girls who were basically abused by a lunatic.
 
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Where i live, you can find this tea brand in stores, and apparently it is made by a racist cult.
" Mo Siegel and John Hay, two of the founders, were avid believers in a new-age bible called The Urantia Book, which followers call “an epochal revelation authored solely by celestial beings.” The book touches upon everything from mind control to a eugenics plot to eliminate the “inferior races” of our great nation."

"There are so many wild ideas in The Urantia Book that it’s hard to know where to start. “Lucifer, Satan, Melchizedek, Adam and Eve, and Jesus are all extra-terrestrial beings who have visited Earth,” Mo Siegel, who is still intimately involved with The Urantia Book and the Urantia Book Fellowship, tells us in “The Twenty Most-Asked Questions.” In fact, Adam and Eve were brought to Earth to “upstep the human race” (more on that later)."
I cant believe i support these people every time i get their cheap ass tea.
 
The largest bombing raid of World War II was the British attack on Cologne, Germany, on May 30, 1942, when over 1,000 bombers were sent to destroy chemical and machine tool facilities there in a single-night attack.

 
In the first editions of The Hobbit, Tolkien didn't properly describe what Gollum looked like, leading illustrators to come up with some rather odd depictions.

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Weirdly enough, even though it is implied several times throughout The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that he is wearing clothing (albeit ragged and torn), most depictions of him always show him in a loincloth.
One of Tolkien's letters clarify that Gollum would have taken clothing off of the goblins he killed, and the elves of Mirkwood would have given him some while he was a prisoner (though it is debatable if he would have agreed to wear it, considering his hatred of elven crafts).
 
When birds migrate, their intestines and stomachs shrink, and their lungs, hearts, and leg muscles can expand to twice their normal size.

Courtesy Scott Weidensaul.
 
Most of you know that the pig penis is shaped like a corkscrew, but do you know that the sow's cervical canal is also corkscrew-shaped? During copulation the boar actually inserts his penis into the sow's cervical canal, unlike humans.

A pig's ejaculate measures 200-600 ml. Compared with a bull's, which is around 5-15 ml, not much more than an adult man's.
 
The Wizard said:
In the first editions of The Hobbit, Tolkien didn't properly describe what Gollum looked like, leading illustrators to come up with some rather odd depictions.

View attachment 2040814View attachment 2040801View attachment 2040809View attachment 2040812View attachment 2040813

Weirdly enough, even though it is implied several times throughout The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that he is wearing clothing (albeit ragged and torn), most depictions of him always show him in a loincloth.
One of Tolkien's letters clarify that Gollum would have taken clothing off of the goblins he killed, and the elves of Mirkwood would have given him some while he was a prisoner (though it is debatable if he would have agreed to wear it, considering his hatred of elven crafts).
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That could be because when it was originally written The hobbit was meant to be a standalone story and the lord of the rings didn't exist yet. In the original version of the story gollum was meant to be some random freaky creature Bilbo encounters in his travels and the one ring was originally just a magic invisibility ring. Not the one ring of power to rule the others it would later be known as
 
The Wizard said:
In the first editions of The Hobbit, Tolkien didn't properly describe what Gollum looked like, leading illustrators to come up with some rather odd depictions.

View attachment 2040814View attachment 2040801View attachment 2040809View attachment 2040812View attachment 2040813

Weirdly enough, even though it is implied several times throughout The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that he is wearing clothing (albeit ragged and torn), most depictions of him always show him in a loincloth.
One of Tolkien's letters clarify that Gollum would have taken clothing off of the goblins he killed, and the elves of Mirkwood would have given him some while he was a prisoner (though it is debatable if he would have agreed to wear it, considering his hatred of elven crafts).
Click to expand...
There are a bunch of oddities in the first edition, such as the mention of modern technology, namely street lamps. Perhaps the most interesting one is that in the first edition, Gollum willingly gives up the ring and shows Bilbo the way out. Tolkien later revised the outcome to what we know now, where Gollum curses Bilbo for stealing his precious ring.

This difference wasn't just forgotten about however; in Lord of the Rings, Bilbo tells the story in the fashion of the first edition, only to later reveal that he stole the Ring, rather than winning it from Gollum. It's kinda funny that in-universe, the first edition is how Bilbo told the story while all subsequent editions show the "true" story.
 
Gray horses are not born gray. They are born with one of two general base coats: bay/brown or chestnut (aka red). As they age, their coats will turn gray. The shade of gray depends on the base coat: horses born with darker bay coats will tend to be dark gray, while chestnut coats will be lighter. However, with little exception they will continue to "bleach" and all gray horses will be white-gray by age 14. Sometimes a foal will be born as a paint (spotted) but still be gray and bleach over time. Occasionally you'll get one that starts to bleach super early and ends up "white" by age 2.

Ironically, black horses are usually not born black - they are born with a sheen over their coat that makes them appear grayish.
disky said:
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Where i live, you can find this tea brand in stores, and apparently it is made by a racist cult.
" Mo Siegel and John Hay, two of the founders, were avid believers in a new-age bible called The Urantia Book, which followers call “an epochal revelation authored solely by celestial beings.” The book touches upon everything from mind control to a eugenics plot to eliminate the “inferior races” of our great nation."

"There are so many wild ideas in The Urantia Book that it’s hard to know where to start. “Lucifer, Satan, Melchizedek, Adam and Eve, and Jesus are all extra-terrestrial beings who have visited Earth,” Mo Siegel, who is still intimately involved with The Urantia Book and the Urantia Book Fellowship, tells us in “The Twenty Most-Asked Questions.” In fact, Adam and Eve were brought to Earth to “upstep the human race” (more on that later)."
I cant believe i support these people every time i get their cheap ass tea.
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Excuse me, what the fuck? We have some of this in our pantry right now?!
 
Alright this one is pretty neat, its a few facts merged into one, but anyways

Back in 1999, Amazon and Artisan Entertainment partnered up and actually set up a On Demand PPV Stream for The Blair Witch Project (although unlike Amazon Prime, the catch is that it only worked through Real Player)

On top of this, this stream version contained a scene that's never been released on VHS, DVD, anywhere else; although the scene itself is nothing important, just the lead arguing with the other characters in a hotel room, with the lead woman pretty much just saying "either follow what I say or fuck off"


This version hasn't been circulating since 2002



That reminds me, wasn't there another movie that had some scenes exclusive to a PPV broadcast and never released again, like The Crow 2 or something?
 
"From the first days of January, the fortress was seized by a bout of collective obsessive-compulsive disorder. The trigger was a fearful fantasy that Tsarist [Russian] troops were donning Habsburg uniforms to patrol no man's land. To quell their surging anxiety, Kusmanek and his staff devised a comforting ritual: a new recognition system so intricate - and silly - that no enemy could hope or would want to imitate it. It would have been funny, had it not put lives at risk.
Under this new system, fortress troops stalking stealthily through no man's land were to halt on encountering an apparently friendly patrol and perform a three part ritual to confirm its authenticity. First came the challenge: a top secret acoustic signal. This was usually two or three blasts of varying length on a pipe. The attention of the patrol (and presumably of any enemy lurking nearby) attracted, everybody would go to ground.
The ritual's second part, the answer, could then begin. One extremely unfortunate, and probably very scared, patrol member would stand up in no man's land and make a secret movement. The orders for one day instructed him to 'swing [his] cap over his head in circle'. On another, he would raise his rifle and wave it right and left. On yet another, the correct response was to balance a cap onto a rifle or sabre and raise it high in the air. The order dictating this move for 28 January 1915, emphasized that the pose should be held for a full three march beats, perhaps to mitigate any risk that the anxious solder might be over-hasty.
After the flawless performance of the answer came the final part of the ritual, confirmation. A solder from the group which had initiated the challenge would stand up, revealing his patrol's position too, and carry out a different, but no less odd gyration. Holding a cap to the right and flapping it up and down three times, punching to either side once to the left were just three of the moves troops were ordered to perform. The combinations were endless. Then, if nobody had been shot, both groups of soldiers could go on their way."
- The Fortress: The Great Siege Of Przemysl, pg. 173-174

There were also many other hysterical fantasies and ideas created inside the isolated fortress
 
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the first universal studios movie to be filmed in super 35 mm film was oddly enough. The highly hated Jaws: The Revenge.

working titles for jaws the revenge included jaws the return and Jaws 87. the later of which is what the film would be titled in Japan.

Jaws The Revenge was the last film of Judith Barsi's career until her tragic murder at the hands of her father in 1988.

The film would also be the last theatrical film made by it's director Bob Sargent. Similarly the previous film Jaws 3D was the only theatrical film directed by Joe Alves
 
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