31. TIL that there’s a 43,000-square-foot basement underneath the Lincoln Memorial that was forgotten about until 1974. It has its own plant life and ecosystem and graffiti from the original workers.
32. TIL the vocal effect used in the song Zombie by the Cranberries is known as ‘keening’. This is a wailing sound used in Ireland to mourn the dead at funerals.
33. TIL that in 585 B.C., a solar eclipse occurred in the middle of a battle between the Lydians and the Medes. The darkening sky was interpreted as a sign by the soldiers, so they stopped fighting. As a result, a six-year war was ended.
34. TIL the blue planet used to be purple. 250 million years ago, the oceans lost all their oxygen and one of the only things to survive was a purple alga/bacteria which would have given the seas an irridescent violet hue. Geologists have found remnants of this purple bacteria embedded in ancient rock.
35. TIL hockey player Stan Mikita went from being one of the most penalized players to winning the Lady Byng Trophy twice for sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with excellence all because his daughter asked, “Mommy, why does Daddy spend so much time sitting down [in the penalty box]?”
36. TIL about Bill Millin, a Scottish soldier who walked up and down the beaches of Normandy on D-Day playing the bagpipes. Two captured German snipers would reveal why the piper at the front hadn’t been shot at. They said it was because they thought he was ‘dummkopf’, a foolhardy idiot.
37. TIL that the ‘leaf sheep,’ a sea slug native to Japan, is an animal that can photosynthesize. It eats algae and retains the chloroplasts that plants use for photosynthesis and can live for months on photosynthesis alone.
38. TIL ‘Saturn devouring his son’ and the 13 other Black Paintings were never ment for public display. In 1819 Francisco Goya went into near isolation and painted the works directly onto the walls of his house. The haunting pictures reflect Goya’s internal demons and civil strife occuring in Spain
