Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

kozmonyet t1_j8iqi86 wrote

Reply to TIL The Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah is almost 4000 feet deep (that's 3X as tall as the Empire State Building). It's the largest man-made excavation and the deepest open-pit mine in the world. It's also visible to the naked eye from space. by lqwertyd

I haven't visited in years but back when they had a visitor's center you could drive up to, it was a pretty amazing place to see.

And useless trivia for the day: The owner of that mine, Rio Tinto, also owns the old 60's TV western series "Death Valley Days." When Rio Tinto bought out US Borax (the "20 mule team" stuff), the TV show was part of the deal.

So you'll see the Rio Tinto name on the credits now if you happen to tune into the show on some cable feed.

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Startug t1_j8iecuv wrote

Reply to comment by Archberdmans in TIL of Africa, Ohio, USA, the only town in the world named after the Underground Railroad, the series of networks to help slaves escape Southern US slave states. The name is derived from a mocking comment from a pro-slavery neighbor referring to the the community of escaped slaves there as Africa. by vrphotosguy55

I grew up just 15 minutes southwest of Berlin. It was funny hearing how it was pronounced by people out of town, assuming it was the same as the city in Germany. We pronounce it with a short r, like Berling. As a kid I didn't realize I was the one pronouncing the German city's name wrong until I was probably 7.

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pseudangelos t1_j8hhk2j wrote

Reply to comment by 777IRON in TIL Eating every course seperately is Service à la russe. Before this meals were service à la française where all courses were served at once. Ambassador Alexander Kurakin introduced Service à la russe to France in 1810 and it became the norm by the 1880s. by jamescookenotthatone

Embracing and celebrating influences from various world cultures is a 'serious imperialist attitude'? I suppose we're not allowed to consider tea part of UK culture either since we got it from trading too. Maybe we should also force India to rework most of its country's recipes to remove all the chillis and tomatoes they got from the Americas.

In fact, let's just force every country to only use ingredients and techniques from their own borders, and see what a marvelous world foodscape we have then.

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