TIL that when star NBA player Reggie Lewis died in 1993, the remaining 8 million dollars of his contract still counted against the Celtics salary cap, which prevented them from signing a player of equal value for the next three seasons.
https://www.courant.com/1993/11/14/at-face-value-board-makes-celtics-pay-for-their-success/
#til #todayilearned
TIL: In Switzerland, it's illegal to own only one guinea pig
https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/natural-sciences/animals/pets/guinea-pig-switzerland/
#til #todayilearned
TIL there is a Civil War Diorama museum in Gettysburg that depicts the battle scenes fought by cats.
#til #todayilearned
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/16jhs6z/til_there_is_a_civil_war_diorama_museum_in/
TIL that Michelangelo wrote a poem about how much he hated painting the Sistine Chapel, which translates as such: ‘I’ve already grown a goiter from this torture, hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy (or anywhere else where the stagnant water’s poison).’
#til #todayilearned
TIL that in Home Alone, the picture of Kevin’s brother Buzz's girlfriend was actually a picture of the art director's son wearing a wig.
https://screenrant.com/home-alone-buzz-girlfriend-art-director-son-cameo/
#til #todayilearned
TIL that the oldest operating company in the world is Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, a Japanese hot spring hotel owned by the same family for over 1,300 years.
https://www.uniqhotels.com/nishiyama-onsen-keiunkan
#til #todayilearned
TIL that President William McKinley always wore a red carnation for good luck but sometimes gave it out as a memento. When greeting the crowd in 1901, he handed a 12-year-old girl, Myrtle, his the bloom off his lapel. Minutes later, he was fatally shot by a man in the crowd.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/63826/time-william-mckinley-gave-away-his-lucky-flower-and-…
#til #todayilearned
TIL among the disintegrated remains of the Space Shuttle Columbia was the diary of Ilan Ramon, which managed to survive mostly intact. The diary detailed his first six days during Columbia's final mission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilan_Ramon#Diary
#til #todayilearned
TIL Many of the dinosaurs featured in Jurassic Park, such as Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus rex, did not evolve until after the Jurassic Period was over
https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/mesozoic/jurassic/jurassic.php
#til #todayilearned
TIL that on the weekend of Friday June 22nd Professional Wrestler Chris Benoit killed his wife Nancy, then his son and the next day himself. But 14 hours before anyone knew what happened a wiki user edited a wiki article to say that Nancy was dead, later claiming it was a "terrible coincidence".
https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Death_of_Nancy_Benoit_rumour_posted_on_Wikipedia_ho…
#til #todayilearned
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/16ilakd/til_that_on_the_weekend_of_friday_june_22nd/
TIL Sam Walton founder of Wal-mart was an avid pilot. He flew his small aluminum plane around to scout new store locations and keep tabs on his stores. One time he dropped in on a Wal-Mart because he noticed from the sky that its parking lot was empty.
#til #todayilearned
TIL the first use in print of the term 'heavy metal' to describe a genre of music was in the review of Sir Lord Baltimore's 1970 debut album, Kingdom Come, in Creem magazine.
#til #todayilearned
TIL that Metallica's 1998 cover of Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" was recorded closer in time to the original 1976 live version than it is to the present day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_the_Page_(Bob_Seger_song)
#til #todayilearned
TIL that a Portuguese fraudster managed to convince a legitimate British printing company to produce so many banknotes that it impacted the Portuguese economy and thus also contributed to the military dictatorship from 1926 to 1974. The head of the printing house later became Lord Mayor of London.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis#Banco_de_Portugal_plot
#til #todayilearned
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/16hjhrc/til_that_a_portuguese_fraudster_managed_to/
TIL that movie studios take out insurance in case the movie is delayed getting produced or has location issues
https://collider.com/mission-impossible-insurance-payout-71-million/
#til #todayilearned
TIL that Spanish football club Athletic Club Bilbao has a policy of only signing players who were either born in or trained in football in the Basque county.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletic_Bilbao
#til #todayilearned
TIL Male babies get morning wood in utero
https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/why-guys-rise-well-rise-morning-1c6437438
#til #todayilearned
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/16co1ga/til_male_babies_get_morning_wood_in_utero/
TIL about operation Plumbbob, which caused a manhole cover to travel at an estimated 150,000 mph
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/16bw1pg/til_about_operation_plumbbob_which_caused_a/
TIL that the sky is blue because the light from the sun selectevly has the blue removed on its way down to Earth's surface, because the particles in the atmosphere are the same size as the blue light, so they make it scatter. The blue scatters in the air, so we have a blue sky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvmWxm3nR6E
TIL about the bear bile industry where they keep bears captive in small and inhumane cages and extract their bile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile_bear
