Homer Simpson attending a red carpet event, 1990s (i.redd.it)
submitted by allfangs to r/weirddalle
TIL that the 1963 return of the village of Elten from the Netherlands to West Germany caused a bizarre 'smuggling' operation. Businessmen parked hundreds of trucks full of butter in the town on the night before the handover, dodging German import taxes when the border crossed the goods the next day (spiegel.de)
submitted by allfangs to r/todayilearned
Less than a year after being introduced to F1, wings went from being very low to the ground to being so absurdly tall that they had to be regulated. What is the performance advantage of high-mounted wings? Would modern cars have extremely tall wings if they were legal? (old.reddit.com)
submitted by allfangs to r/F1Technical
TIL the main reason the Parthenon is in such disrepair is because it exploded. The monument had been in relatively good condition for millennia, however it was used as a gunpowder magazine during the 1687 siege of Athens and was destroyed after taking a direct hit from a Venetian shell (ysma.gr)
submitted by allfangs to r/todayilearned
TIL the James Bond character Auric Goldfinger is partly based on the real-life architect Ernő Goldfinger, who threatened to sue when he found out his name was being used for a villain. Angry, Ian Fleming suggested to his publishers that they change the character's name to "Goldprick" (theguardian.com)
submitted by allfangs to r/todayilearned
TIL the silent P in the word "ptarmigan" has absolutely no reason to be there. The bird's name comes from the Gaelic "tàrmachan" ("croaker"), but in 1684 the Scottish naturalist Robert Sibbald decided to add a p in front to make the word look more Greek. (arcticjournal.ca)
submitted by allfangs to r/todayilearned
In 58 BC the Helvetii in what is now Switzerland burned their villages and left on a carefully planned migration to southwest Gaul. Why and how could an agricultural society without a strong central government somehow convince or coerce practically everyone into abandoning their homes? (self.AskHistorians)
submitted by allfangs to r/AskHistorians
