5 things you didn't know...

[Rozen Thorne]

5 Things You Didn't Know About the American Civil War

1. One-third of the soldiers who fought for the Union Army were immigrants, and nearly one in 10 was African American.
2. Black Union soldiers refused their salaries for 18 months to protest being paid lower wages than white soldiers.
3. Before William Tecumseh Sherman became a great Union general, he was demoted for apparent insanity.
4. More men died in the Civil War than any other American conflict, and two-thirds of the dead perished from disease.
5. Both before and during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln pushed to send freed slaves abroad.

 

[MissMarvelous]

5 things you didn't know about dog's:

1. A study at UCSD claims that your dog can genuinely get jealous when they see you display affection for another creature.
   
2. Man’s best friend? Petting a dog and gazing into their eyes releases oxytocin (i.e the “love hormone”) not only for you, but for them as well.
   
3. Dogs that have been spayed or neutered live longer than dogs who are intact.
   
4. Your dog can smell your feelings. In fact, your dog’s sense of smell is approximately 100,000 times better than yours. So it shouldn’t be shocking that they can in fact, smell things such as fear. When a human is fearful, they perspire, and a dog is easily able to pick up on this change.
   
5. Have you ever wondered why your dog curls up in a ball when they sleep? It’s actually an age-old instinct to keep themselves warm and to protect vital organs while they sleep

Source: 23 Amazing Facts About Dogs You Probably Didn't Know

 

[Flash525]

Five things you didn’t know about Dinosaurs.

1. Dinosaurs lived during a time of Earth’s history known as the Mesozoic era which spanned three periods (Triassic, Jurassic & Cretaceous) and spanned somewhere between 230million to 65million years ago.
2. Most large carnivorous dinosaurs had hollow bones, which explains their suggested speed and agility considering their size.
3. Dinosaurs generally increased in size as they evolved through the Mesozoic era. Dinosaurs of the Triassic were quite small compared to those of the Cretaceous.
4. In their various forms, Dinosaurs roamed the Earth for some 165million years. By comparison, humans have been around for a mere 2million.
5. Pterosaurs and Marine Reptiles Weren't Technically Dinosaurs.

 

[Rozen Thorne]

5 Things You Didn’t Know About... The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

1. Peter Jackson feared for Viggo Mortensen’s life
Viggo Mortensen’s most powerful scene in the trilogy nearly killed him. The only suitable location for filming the Black Gate of Mordor scene — in which Mortensen’s Aragorn fully embraces his duties as King of Gondor and gives his soldiers a rousing speech about how “a day may come when the courage of men fails…but it is not this day!” — was an area of the Rangipo Desert used by the New Zealand military for training, so it was covered in unexploded artillery shells. The country’s army set up a safe area for filming (and several soldiers even joined in as Orc extras), but Mortensen still rode recklessly outside of it.
“Jackson remembers waiting for the explosion,” Nathan writes. “Having found their perfect Aragorn, they were going to watch him get blown up by an unexploded New Zealand bomb.”
Luckily, fate had other plans, and after a minute Mortensen rode back to the safe area without a scratch. Anything You Can Imagine is filled with other accounts of Mortensen’s eccentric and passionate behavior: Taking his sword with him everywhere, sleeping out under the stars, and other ways he engaged with his character.

2. Gollum (Andy Serkis) was antisocial on and off screen
Unlike the Fellowship actors, who got matching tattoos to celebrate their filming experience, Serkis mostly flew solo during production. In order to get into Gollum’s solitary headspace, the actor took a three-day canoe trip down the Whanganui River with only J.R.R. Tolkien’s book for company. And the excursion didn’t end well. “Soaked and short on food, [Serkis] had to be rescued by three outwardly bound Wellington councilors,” Nathan writes.

3. A stranded Sean Bean and Orlando Bloom had to sleep on a stranger’s couch
Jackson planned to stage a riverside battle near Queenstown, New Zealand, but a devastating storm flooded the site, preventing them from filming (Jackson later repurposed his plans for the barrel sequence in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug). “We received a notice along the lines of, ‘No shooting today, river underwater,’” John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) recounted to Nathan.
The cast and crew got separated and, stranded and alone, Bean and Bloom happened upon an isolated cottage inhabited by an old lady. She let the actors crash at her place for four days until helicopters could rescue them.

4. One of the most famous lines in the series almost didn’t happen
Constant dialogue revisions during production meant that the script was never quite finished on the page. Perhaps the most famous line in the entire series — Sean Bean’s Boromir telling the Council of Elrond “one does not simply walk into Mordor” — was a result of these last-minute additions. It was “a passage of dialogue scribbled on a piece of paper and literally balanced on his knee,” according to Nathan. The writer points out you can even catch Bean subtly glancing down at it during the scene. It’s hard to account for just how many memes were created by that line.

5. The Beatles originally wanted to do a film version of LOTR — and the actors honored it in the best way
Jackson wasn’t the first filmmaker to attempt Tolkien—back in the ’60s, the Beatles tried to kick-start their own version. In homage to this (and Jackson’s general love of the band), Sean Astin, Elijah Wood, Dominic Monaghan, and Billy Boyd once gave the director a birthday gift: a photo featuring the foursome dressed in hobbit costumes, but posed as John, Paul, George, and Ringo, with “The Hobbits” emblazoned on the bass drum.

 

[MissMarvelous]

@John Bigboote oh, Viggo...

5 things you didn't know about yourself:

1. It's Impossible to Tickle Yourself: Your cerebellum—the area in the back of your brain that monitors movement—predicts the sensation you will feel when you attempt to tickle yourself, countering the response that the tickle would otherwise elicit in other parts of your brain.
2. Humans "Glow," You Just Can't See It: Research has found that the human body does in fact emit visible light, but since it's about 1,000 times less intense than the levels our eyes are able to spot, it's not "visible" in practice.
3. Your Rear Is Your Largest Muscle: While there is some debate about which of your muscles is the strongest, your gluteus maximus happens to be your largest, according to the Library of Congress.
4. Your Intestine Is Four Times as Long as You Are: your small intestine is about 18 to 23 feet long, meaning, if you uncoiled it, it would stretch to almost four times the length of your own body.
5. There Are No Muscles In Your Fingers: But as strong a grip as you might have, it's not because you've got strong muscles in your fingers. Any movement that happens in your fingers is due to tendons and bones, with a lot of help from the muscles in the palms of your hands and at the base of each individual digit.

Source: 33 Amazing Things You Didn't Know About Your Own Body | Best Life

 

[Rozen Thorne]

5 Things You Didn't Know About... Mongolia

1. The endangered two-humped Bactrian camel is native to Mongolia
The two-humped Bactrian camel is indigenous to Mongolia. The annual Thousand Camel Festival is run by a local non-governmental organisation working to protect and preserve the Bactrian camel population, which has been steadily declining over the past twelve years. At the festival you’ll get an opportunity to interact with the camels and learn first-hand about the camel herders’ nomadic lifestyle.

2. Mongolians are always ready for a guest
In a country of vast distances, communication can be difficult but it is important to maintain a sense of community. People living in the Mongolian countryside will always have a bowl of warm, salty milk tea ready for visitors.

3. They have a festival dedicated to eagle hunting
The Golden Eagle Festival is held over two days every year, celebrating age-old Kazakh traditions. It begins with a parade of eagle hunters on horseback, displaying their elaborate hunting costumes and accessories. The eagles are judged for their speed and agility, as the birds are released from a cliff and swoop down to land on the arms of the hunters below. The men demonstrate their courage and horsemanship and a variety of traditional games.

4. It’s the land where dinosaurs once roamed
In the 1920s, fossilised dinosaur remains were found in the Gobi Desert, along with the first dinosaur eggs. Many dinosaur fossils still lie exposed today, so remember to glance down every now and then.

5. The Ladies have more power than many countries
Long before Emily Pankhurst championed the Rights of Women, the ladies of the Mongol Empire were busy in the corridors of power. And not because they were doing the cleaning, these women were in charge. While the men were off fighting and eating saddle-squashed steak, the women ruled the roost. They held together the entire subsistence economy and occupied the most senior religious posts, as well as enjoying marital and property rights only recently won by women in the West. After the death of Genghis Khan, women took up the political reins and controlled three-quarters of the empire.

 

[MissMarvelous]

. They have a festival dedicated to eagle hunting

Yes!!! This is amazing, have you seen this movie? The eagle hunting tradition goes from father to son, but this girl wanted to learn and she's effing amazeballs! I really want to watch it but haven't had the chance to (need to check on the dark side of the internet...)



5 OMG facts:

1. When Star Wars: A New Hope was released, France was still executing people via guillotine. France's last guillotine execution was of the murderer Hamida Djandoubi on September 10th, 1977. A New Hope was released in theaters in May of that year.
   
2. Do you know what color Polar Bear fur is? If you said white, you're wrong. Polar Bear fur is clear, and the hairs themselves are hollow to insulate the bears from the cold. Also, their skin is black. In warm and muggy climates, polar bear fur sometimes turn green from algae growing *inside* their hollow hairs.
   

1. In the 1830's, Ketchup was sold as medicine in the US. Ohio physician John Cook claimed it was a cure for indigestion.
   

• The Apollo 11 Astronauts (that's uh, when we went to the moon, in case you forgot) had to go through U.S. customs upon their return home because they had items from outside the US to declare: Moon Rocks.
  

• It's not illegal to attempt to escape prison in Germany or Austria. It's considered a basic human instinct to be free, and therefore wrong to punish it.

 

[Rozen Thorne]

5 Things You Didn't Know About Al Capone

1. Capone was in a street gang as a child.
Born on January 17, 1899, in Brooklyn, New York, Alphonse Capone was the fourth of nine children. His parents, Gabriele, a barber, and Teresa Capone, were immigrants from Angri, Italy. Capone belonged to a street gang as a boy and dropped out of school in sixth grade, later joining the Five Points Gang in Manhattan and working as a bouncer and bartender at the Harvard Inn, a Coney Island bar owned by mobster Frankie Yale. In 1918, he married Mae Coughlin; the couple remained together until Capone’s death and had one child, Sonny. By 1920, Capone had moved to Chicago. Some stories claim he went there out of a need to lay low after severely injuring a rival gang member in a fight, while other accounts say Capone was recruited to come to Chicago by Johnny Torrio, a former Brooklyn mobster then making his mark on organized crime in the Windy City.

2. He hated his famous nickname.
In 1917, Capone’s face was slashed during a fight at the Harvard Inn, after he insulted a female patron and her brother retaliated, leaving him with three indelible scars. Capone would attempt to shield the scarred side of his face in photographs, and tried to write them off as war wounds—although he never served in the military. After achieving prominence as a gangster, Capone was dubbed Scarface by the press, a nickname he intensely disliked. Criminal associates referred to the mob boss as the Big Fellow, while friends knew him as Snorky, a slang term that meant spiffy.

3. Capone’s crime gang raked in as much as $100 million annually.
After arriving in Chicago, Capone worked for Torrio, who was part of a criminal network headed by a man named Big Jim Colosimo. When Colosimo was killed (possibly as a hit ordered by Torrio and carried out by Capone’s former boss Frankie Yale), Torrio took over as boss and made Capone one of his key aides. In January 1925, Torrio was gunned down outside his Illinois home. He survived the attack but left Chicago later that year, choosing 26-year-old Capone as his replacement. Capone expanded “the outfit,” as he referred to his underworld organization, and went on to become one of America’s leading mobsters. By some estimates, his crime syndicate pulled in around $100 million a year, the largest portion from bootlegging, followed by gambling, prostitution, racketeering and other illicit activities. A flashy dresser who liked chatting with reporters and became an international celebrity, Capone didn’t apologize for the way he made his living. He claimed to be doing a “public service” for Chicagoans, stating: “Ninety percent of the people of Cook County drink and gamble and my offense has been to furnish them with those amusements.”

4. He was never charged in connection with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
On the morning of February 14, 1929, seven men affiliated with the George “Bugs” Moran gang were shot to death while lined up against a wall inside a garage in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. The victims included five of Moran’s criminal associates along with a mechanic who worked for him and an optometrist who hung around the group; Moran himself wasn’t there. The group of attackers consisted of at least four men, two of them dressed as police officers. The crime became known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and stunned the nation. Authorities investigated a variety of theories and suspects to little avail. There eventually was ample public speculation that Capone, a Moran rival, had masterminded the murders (he was in Florida when they took place); however, he was never charged in the case, which went unsolved.

5. Eliot Ness’s role in Capone’s downfall was exaggerated.
Thanks to federal agent Ness’s best-selling memoir “The Untouchables,” which spawned a TV series and movie, he has been credited as the man who took down Capone. In fact, much of the memoir was embellished by its co-author, Oscar Fraley. As a Prohibition agent, Ness and a small team of men raided illegal breweries and other places linked to Capone’s bootlegging operations around Chicago. Because the agents supposedly refused to accept bribes, they were dubbed the Untouchables by the press. Although Ness’s work helped lead to Capone’s indictment for Prohibition violations, the government instead focused on prosecuting the mobster for tax evasion and his 1931 conviction on those charges is what sent him to prison. Ness went on to serve as Cleveland’s director of public safety and made an unsuccessful bid for mayor there in 1947. His later years were marred by heavy drinking and he died at his home in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, in 1957, the year “The Untouchables” was published.

 

[Flash525]

• It's not illegal to attempt to escape prison in Germany or Austria. It's considered a basic human instinct to be free, and therefore wrong to punish it.

But if you did manage to escape, would you not be re-arrested?

 

[MissMarvelous]

But if you did manage to escape, would you not be re-arrested?

I guess so! But not for running away (?)

 

[Rozen Thorne]

Five Things You Didn't Know About the Battlestar Galactica Reboot.

1. The creator of the original Battlestar Galactica was sued by George Lucas
Lucasfilm and Fox sued Universal claiming that Battlestar Galactica had “at least thirty-four similarities” to Star Wars, including the idea that the tech of the show copied the lived-in, gritty quality of the tech in Star Wars. Fox and Lucasfilm claimed this was a key innovation on their part, “contrary to the stereotypical sleek, new appearance of space-age equipment” in other science fiction at the time. Fox and Lucasfilm eventually lost, but the lawsuit actually continued well after the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica was no longer on the air.

2. We nearly had a Dragonriders of Pern Series instead of the Battlestar Galactica reboot
After working on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Ron Moore also did the hugely popular show Roswell, which led to him helping develop a live-action TV version of the beloved Anne McCaffrey Dragonriders of Pern books. Obviously, this series never actually happened, but Moore says that much of the hand-held camera style which made the reboot Battlestar Galactica famous was originally developed for the Pern series. Interestingly, one of the reasons Moore didn’t do the Pern series is because he clashed with the CW about the nature of the scripts, and after a fateful meeting with Harlan Ellison, realized he didn’t want to become a sell-out.

3. Edward James Olmos freaked out the entire cast during the “So say we all!” scene
At the end of the 2003 Battlestar Galactica miniseries, when Adama tells the crew that they’re going to go off in search of the mythological planet known as Earth, he initiates a call-and-response moment that defines the entire series. The director of the episode, Michael Rymer, reveals in the book that though the line “so say we all” was written in the script, Commander Adama was only supposed to say it once. But actor Edward James Olmos had other ideas and decided to inject impromptu rage and motivation into the scene through unexpected repetition. The large group of cast members and extras had no idea what was going on, meaning, the moment when everyone decides to start chanting back at Adama is a real moment of a group of people being won over on an idea.

4. Tricia Helfer almost lost the part of Number Six to a more famous actress
Though it's never revealed, the identity of the other actress considered for the role, it’s very clear that Tricia Helfer nearly lost out to someone who had more name recognition. During early production at the SyFy Channel (then still called The Sci-Fi Channel), many executives were against casting Helfer because she was a model with zero acting experience. In the book, Helfer notes that ironically, even though the studio wasn’t convinced she was right for the part, they nonetheless used her image almost exclusively to market the first season of the show. Helfer thinks that she became the “centerpiece for the posters” because “the red dress and the white hair stuck out in a show that was filmed dark and documentary style.”

5. Ronald D. Moore and David Eick cancelled their own show
Though the writers of Battlestar Galactica had ongoing problems with Universal and the Sci-Fi Channel throughout the production of the first season, by the third season, the network was giving Moore and company less grief, mostly because the show was so critically acclaimed. In the book, Moore says that the network never really apologized or said: “you were right and we were wrong,” though they did ease up on worrying about whether or not the tone of the show was “too dark.” Even so, by the time the third season started, Moore and Eick jointly decided it was best to end things while the show was still good.

 

[MissMarvelous]

5 random facts that you didn't know:

1. THE DOT OVER THE ‘I’ IS CALLED A TITTLE
2. HONEY IS THE ONLY NATURAL FOOD THAT DOESN’T GO BAD
3. EVERY FACE IN YOUR DREAM IS REAL
4. THE AVERAGE PERSON WILL EAT EIGHT SPIDERS IN THEIR SLEEP
5. THERE ARE SIX TIMES MORE EMPTY HOUSES THAN HOMELESS PEOPLE

 

[Rozen Thorne]

5 Things You Didn't Know About Minecraft

1. To infinity and beyond?
In the most recent builds, the Minecraft overworld is able to generate nearly indefinitely. However, the player isn't able to make use of the infinite map under normal circumstances; the world generates an invisible barrier that’s 30 (though some sources state 32) million blocks in each direction from the centre of the map .
Using modifications or other dubious means, one can see that the world generation beyond the normal 'edge' becomes simplified and sometimes distorted. According to some sources, if a Minecraft block was recreated in real life, it would be 1 metre cubed in size. Assuming this is correct, the explorable Minecraft overworld is bigger than some planets!

2. Creepy stuff
The iconic Creeper monster was actually created from a coding error. In a Twitter conversation in February of this year, Minecraft developer Nathan ‘Dinnerbone’ Adams responded to a fan enquiring about the Creeper's origins, stating how they were born from Notch accidentally swapping the height and length values when generating a pig.

3. Splashing out
On the Minecraft title screen, there's a small yellow piece of text known as a 'splash'. They're randomly generated and contain a whole host of cool references. Some examples include: "Gargamel plays it!" "Cooler than Spock!" and "Does barrel rolls!" These are nods to The Smurfs, Star Trek and Star Fox respectively but there are over 200 of these amusing messages, with some only appearing during special circumstances. For example, deleting a file that contributes to generating the splashes will result in the word "missingno" appearing, a reference to the infamous glitch Pokémon that appeared in Pokémon Red and Blue. "Toilet friendly!" exclusively appears on the Pocket Edition of the game.

4. Herobrine
Early in Minecraft's life, many users began reporting strange happenings and sightings of a mysterious figure in the distance that was apparently following them. This entity - which looked like the default player character, only with ghostly white eyes - was known as Herobrine. Herobrine has been the subject of many a horror story, being able to possess a will of its own that far exceeds that of other AI characters.
Despite appearing in the background of some official promotional material and being the subject of a cheeky reference now and again, Herobrine actually isn't present in the normal Minecraft game at all.

5. Picture perfect
Paintings are one of many different things players can craft and decorate their home/cave/floating death fortress with. While some paintings depict random landscapes or scenarios, many others feature references to other videogames. Perhaps the most recognisable is the painting known as DonkeyKong, which shows a pixelated version of the 100m level from the Donkey Kong Arcade game. Other games featured in paintings include King's Quest and Grim Fandango.

 

[MissMarvelous]

5 cool facts:

1. WHEN THREE-LETTER AIRPORT CODES BECAME STANDARD, AIRPORTS THAT HAD BEEN USING TWO LETTERS SIMPLY ADDED AN X.
2. NEW MEXICO STATE'S FIRST GRADUATING CLASS IN 1893 HAD ONLY ONE STUDENT—AND HE WAS SHOT AND KILLED BEFORE GRADUATION.
3. JONAS SALK DECLINED TO PATENT HIS POLIO VACCINE. "THERE IS NO PATENT," HE SAID. "COULD YOU PATENT THE SUN?"
4. THE 50-STAR AMERICAN FLAG WAS DESIGNED BY AN OHIO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT FOR A CLASS PROJECT. HIS TEACHER ORIGINALLY GAVE HIM A B–.
5. SEAN CONNERY TURNED DOWN THE GANDALF ROLE IN LORD OF THE RINGS. "I READ THE BOOK. I READ THE SCRIPT. I SAW THE MOVIE. I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND IT."

 

[Rozen Thorne]

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Afghanistan

1. THE FOOD IS AMAZING
Family life is a big part of peoples’ lives in Afghanistan and they come together to socialize around food.
Afghan cuisine is fabulous. There’s more to it than lamb kebabs and rice. There are a lot of influences from neighboring countries. The flavors of the food are a mix between Middle Eastern, Indian, Asian and Chinese.
A popular dish is a called Oshack. It’s kind of like ravioli or tortellini, but it’s stuffed with a vegetable that’s similar to a leek.

2. AFGHANS GO ABOVE AND BEYOND FOR GUESTS
One of the things that really stands out is the incredible level of hospitality that locals would extend to you.

3. THEY HAVE A CHEEKY SENSE OF HUMOR
What surprises people is the mental strength of women in Afghanistan despite the hardships they face.

4. THEY’RE OBSESSED WITH SPORTS
Something that many people may not know is that Afghanistan is a country that is growing in leaps and bounds in sports. People normally associate sport in Afghanistan with the national game of Buzkashi – a gruesome variant of polo where teams compete with a goat carcass instead of a ball. But Afghanistan is causing a storm in more conventional sports.
Skateboarding is also becoming hugely popular. A skateboarding park built in Kabul was actually founded by an Australian skateboarder and is used by both boys and girls.

5. POETS ARE TREATED LIKE ROCK STARS
Poetry is a big part of the Afghan society and culture. Women, men and children will gather for poetry recitals and to listen to music, reciting old classics or pieces they’ve written themselves.
Despite instability in the country, life continues, people run their businesses, shops are open and there’s a flourishing media industry.

 

[MissMarvelous]

@John Bigboote I need to go there, ASAP.

5 OMG facts:

1. Pringles are not potato chips! Pringles are made from dehydrated potato flakes that are pressed into their signature curve. The FDA ruled Pringles could not market this product as a chip but rather a “potato crisp”.
   
2. Koalas have fingerprints! Koala prints are real and very much like a human’s. Each koala is known to leave their identifiable mark on trees and more.
3. Nutmeg can be toxic.
   
4. Some planets produce diamond rain!

• Bees will hurt their own kind. But did you know bees are territorial even to their own kind?

 

[Rozen Thorne]

5 Things You May Have Not KNown About Snack Companies

1. Krispy Kreme
The recipe for Krispy Kreme's famous glazed donuts is kept under lock and key at the company's plant in Winston-Salem, NC.

2. Oreo
The cookie-to-creme ratio of an original Oreo cookie is always, without fail, 71 percent to 29 percent.

3. Doritos
The name of these addictive chips is derived from the word "Doradito," meaning "little bits of gold." Maybe Doritos are more precious than we thought.

4. Ben & Jerry's
The lucky employees who work for Ben & Jerry's can take home up to three pints of ice cream every single day. Talk about office perks!

5. M&M's
Soldiers in the Spanish Civil War who ate pieces of chocolate covered in sugar coating inspired Forrest Mars to manufacture M&M's with a shell to prevent them from melting.

 

[MissMarvelous]

5 crazy facts:

1. A jellyfish's mouth is also its anus: Yep, these creatures eat and discard waste from the same opening, according to National Geographic. Ew.
2. You can't breathe and swallow at the same time: "This is because the food and fluids we swallow and the air we breathe in both travel down the same part of our throat,"
   
3. You've probably consumed dinosaur waste: Anything you're drinking today has been around for millions of years, recycled repeatedly through precipitation and, yes, evacuation.
   
4. In Welsh folklore, corgis transported fairies: In Welsh legend, a pair of corgis were said to tow the carts and carriages of fairies and also help them ride into battle.
   
5. Fake smiles can hurt you: It turns out that faking happiness can hurt your health.

30 Crazy Facts About Life That May Freak You Out a Little | Best Life

 

[Rozen Thorne]

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Tea

Meet Camellia
All “true” types of tea come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. Black, green, white, and oolong teas are all made from the leaves of this plant. Oxidation, processing, and other factors give these types their distinctive colors and flavors. Other so-called teas, such as herbal (chamomile, peppermint, etc.), mate, and rooibos (also known as “red tea”) are more correctly called tisanes.

Grab bag
Tea bags were invented in the early 20th century—on accident. An American tea merchant used silk bags to send samples to his customers. The customers mistakenly thought the bags were meant to replace traditional metal infusers, and placed them whole inside their pots.

High tea
The tradition of having afternoon tea, or “high tea,” is thought to have been popularized by Anna, 7th Duchess of Bedford, a friend of Queen Victoria. It was meant to be a substantial snack between the morning meal and the evening meal—with a side of gossip.

Identi-tea theft
Tea grown in the Darjeeling region of India is highly prized, leading many to call it “the champagne of teas.” About 10 million kilograms of this tea are grown each year, yet worldwide sales are more than four times that much. Officials have tried to crack down on false labeling of teas or impure tea blends as Darjeeling.

Utili-tea
Aside from making a delicious beverage, tea leaves can be used as an anti-inflammatory for minor bug bites and burns (and for puffy eyes), to fertilize plants, and as a freshener and deodorizer. And yes, you can steep them for a tasty treat first!

 

[Flash525]

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Afghanistan

[snip]

Those facts are genuinely interesting when you consider what the west is responsive for in Afghanistan, yet they’d still treat us so well? Sounds like an inspiring culture.

4. Ben & Jerry's
The lucky employees who work for Ben & Jerry's can take home up to three pints of ice cream every single day. Talk about office perks!

I may have just found my calling.

You can't breathe and swallow at the same time: "This is because the food and fluids we swallow and the air we breathe in both travel down the same part of our throat,"

That’s not actually completely accurate is it? If you couldn’t do both, then you’d not be able to choke whilst eating.

 

[MissMarvelous]

That’s not actually completely accurate is it? If you couldn’t do both, the

Shadap if the internet says that you can't...then You can't.

 

[Schlosser85]

1. French Fries are not French. They're Belgian. American troops met Belgian troops during WWI and were introduced to a certain food they had. The Belgian troops spoke French, so the Americans thought they were French and called the food French Fries.

2. Chinese fortune cookies are not Chinese. They were made up by Japanese immigrants to the United States who passed themselves off as Chinese due to anti-Japanese sentiment after WWII. "Chinese" fortune cookies are not found in China, or Japan, or anywhere other than the United States.

3. The so-called Pennsylvania Dutch are of German descent, not Dutch. The German word for "German" is Deutsch, and German immigrants at Ellis Island who spoke poor English, when asked their nationality, answered "Deutsch", which the questioners mistook for Dutch. Also why Germans especially in the 1800s used to be often erroneously referred to as Dutchmen.

4. Napoleon Bonaparte, despite becoming the Emperor of the French, was not French. He was born a French citizen, but only because the island of Corsica where he was born had changed hands from Italy to France a few months before his birth. He was ethnically Italian, grew up with the Corsican dialect, and did not speak French until school. Even as an adult, his French was riddled with mistakes, especially in his written letters. Another misconception about Napoleon.....he was actually of average height for his time period, although he is often thought of as small (hence the phrase "Napoleonic Complex" to refer to a short man who overcompensates with an inflated self-image).

5. The River Thames in London was not always pronounced "Temz". It was pronounced the way it looks until the reign of King George, the first of many King Georges (and from whom the current royal family the Windsors are descended) became King of England. Although he was King of England, the first King George was German, spoke poor English, and pronounced Thames as "Temz". Since the King said it that way, everyone else started saying it that way too, and it stuck.

 

[Enriquespy]

3. Doritos
The name of these addictive chips is derived from the word "Doradito," meaning "little bits of gold." Maybe Doritos are more precious than we thought.

"Doradito" Actually means "little golden one" And also means "little fried one" Because fried things (usually tortillas, like the ones originally used to make them) get shiny and tanned when fried.

 

[Rozen Thorne]

I've no interest in fact-checking foreign word meanings, you do it well enough so it's all good.

5 Sexy Things You May Not Have Known

In Ancient Egypt, women placed a mixture of honey, wax and crocodile dung inside their vaginas to act as a contraceptive. Oddly enough, it wasn’t so much of a contraceptive that it kept Egyptian men away. They still went for it, but modern science has discovered that the alkaline nature of crocodile poop works as a mild spermicide. Those clever Egyptian women.

A 2012 Turkish study found that men who were overweight lasted longer – up to 3 times longer - than their skinnier male counterparts. It could be linked to poor circulation, or maybe some other bulking agent, but hey, whatever works. Have another piece of pie gents.

In Europe, a study discovered that women wearing socks during sexy times increased the likelihood of her having an orgasm from 50% to 80%.

Most condoms are not vegan due to a milk protein added to the latex, however there are companies now producing vegan condoms for people who strenuously object to putting meat into their mouths.

And finally, one for the girls and boys to consider, the average vagina is 3 to 4 inches long, but can expand by 200 percentage when aroused. So, no, size really doesn’t matter, women are flexible that way, and whatever you’ve got, we can deal with it. Note that the word aroused is in there. No matter who is tickling your fancy ladies, make sure to make time for the pre-show, as well as the main event.

 

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In Europe, a study discovered that women wearing socks during sexy times increased the likelihood of her having an orgasm from 50% to 80%.

The warmer the feet?

Most condoms are not vegan due to a milk protein added to the latex, however there are companies now producing vegan condoms for people who strenuously object to putting meat into their mouths.

I wonder, do vegan women perform oral on men? Would oddly seem hypocritical of them, right?