/f/todayilearned
TIL Hou Jing, a general during the China's North-South period, seized control of the government of the Liang dynasty by rebelling. After that, in an act of vanity, he gave himself the title of "General of the Universe, Past, Present, and Future, Commander of all Forces in the Six Directions".
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by zhuquanzhong t3_1278gcx
TIL that +/- 42k years ago, the “Adam’s Event”, a reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles, may have led to the extinction of mega fauna, Neanderthals, and forced humans into caves as the earth experienced intense periods of cosmic radiation, solar winds, electrical storms, and drastic climate change.
geographyrealm.comSubmitted by GonzoVeritas t3_11ejqd4
TIL after 20-year-old US Marine Lori Padilla killed Rojita Kinjo and her young daughters Mitsuko and Mariko while speeding in Okinawa, Japan, a court ruled that Padilla should pay the victims' family 62 million yen, but as she had already left Japan, the amount was paid by the US and Japan
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by vrphotosguy55 t3_yeanrq
TIL If Coca-Cola's inventor had decided to file a patent application in 1892 instead of keeping the recipe a secret, patent protection would have expired long before Pepsi ever came onto the market in 1965. Patent protection lasts 20 years at most. Trade secrets can last forever.
mondaq.comSubmitted by ethereal3xp t3_11qwpru
TIL that the Brazilian village of Candido Godoi, 7k inhabitants mostly of German descent, have the greatest birth rate of twins in the world (1/5 births). Some believe it is the result of genetic experiments of nazi medic Mengele, notorious for his obsession with creating an Aryan race.
theguardian.comSubmitted by greenland1237 t3_10gyp6f
TIL In Confucianism, there are five grades of mourning obligation, depending on one's relation to the person that died. The death of one's mother or father requires 27 months of mourning while second cousins or first cousins once removed only require 3 months of mourning.
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by haddock420 t3_z1wbd2
Submitted by karelkarelkarels t3_10p5op6
TIL of the Schön scandal, concerning physicist Jan Hendrik Schön, who rose to prominence after a series of breakthroughs with semiconductors that made him in contention for the Nobel prize. It was later discovered that all his research was completely fraudulent.
theguardian.comSubmitted by AmiroZ t3_y9vmck
Submitted by belledujourr t3_118qk02
TIL Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson was attacked four times in the 1980s, including a thrown bottle (followed by three missed shots with a revolver), a would-be gunman (who he neutralized), a drug-addled spectator smashing a car he was in, and nearly being struck with a tire iron.
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by electricmaster23 t3_z6fjeu
TIL about the foreign accent syndrome (FAS), which is a speech disorder that causes a sudden change to speech so that a native speaker is perceived to speak with a “foreign” accent. FAS is usually caused by damage to the brain from a traumatic injury or a stroke.
sites.utdallas.eduSubmitted by Imaginary_Emu3462 t3_xxjm44