Post a random fact people probably don't know! (And even if they did, they wouldn't care.)

[ping]

I don't know where the usage stems from exactly, but in the last months or years, it seems that the stock music to (often slightly facetiously) underline a sacral atmosphere, or a moment of redemption, is the beginning of Josef Rheinberger's Sanctus from his Cantus Missae, an a cappella mass for eight voices.

I think the recording I've linked is a bit slower than the sound bit used most of the time...? Honestly, it's a bit sluggish as a whole, especially the end of the Agnus Dei, which is supposed to be a fair bit faster than the rest of the piece.

[Chad Narukami]

Written and illustrated by Hirohiko Araki, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure began serialization in the weekly shōnen manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump's combined issue #1–2 of 1987, published in Japan by Shueisha on January 1, 1987.
 

[Benice]

The song "You'll Be Back" from Hamilton was originally conceived in 2009.

[Benice]

The word "Dream" (Or "Yume" in Japanese) appears 480 times in Yakuza 5.

The game's not very subtle with its theme.

[Chad Narukami]

Yakuza 5 is also the longest Yakuza game on record, clocking in at more than 70 hours

[ping]

The longest year in history was, in fact, the year 708 a. u. c. (the Roman calender), or 46 BC. In order to synchronise his shiny new calendar with the actual solar cycle, the Pontifex Maximus (some guy named Gaius Iulius Caesar) lengthened the last year of the old calendar to 445 days.

Contrary to popular belief, it's also not Caesar's fault that month names and numbers don't line up (SEPTember being the 9th month, OCTober the 10th etc.). It's because long before Caesar, the first month of the Roman year was Martius/March - the month of Mars, when the Romans would go out to kill barbarians and take their shit. Most likely, the beginning of a year, and with it the election of the consuls of the year, was moved back two months so that the consuls could do some organising before the Killing Barbarians business would start in earnest.

Edited December 4, 2022 by ping

[Chad Narukami]

The story behind Santa goes back to the third century during the time of St. Nicholas, a monk, even though some sources state that he was a bishop. Nicholas was born around 280 A.D. in Patara, in modern-day Turkey. The image of Santa became popular in the United States and Canada in the 19th century due to the significant influence of the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas".

[Benice]

Lorraine Hansberry was the godmother to Nina Simone's daughter Lisa.

[Chad Narukami]

Arsène Lupin is a fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created in 1905 by French writer Maurice Leblanc. The character was first introduced in a series of short stories serialized in the magazine Je sais tout. The first story, "The Arrest of Arsène Lupin", was published on the 15th of July, 1905.

 

[Benice]

The greatest court cases in the history of the USA include South Dakota v. Fifteen Impounded Cats, United States v. One Tyrannosaurus Bataar Skeleton, One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania, and the iconic United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls.

[indigoasis]

3 minutes ago, Benice said:

Clacker Balls

Speaking of clackers, their appearance in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency, which is set in 1938, is roughly 30 years before they were actually created. I couldn't find an exact date for when they were invented, but they were popular toys in the early 70s.

[ping]

Despite harsh censorship laws, a Russian edition of Karl Marx's Das Kapital was allowed to be distributed in Tsarist Russia in 1872. The officials believed that hardly anybody would be interested in Marx's theories, never mind understand them.

[ping]

James Cameron's movie Avatar has some striking similarities to the mid-90s video game Albion: In both stories, a mining corperation is planning to extract resources from a faraway planet, which then turns out to be populated by a tribal civilisation of cat people. The protagonists come in contact with those cat people (although I don't think Tom Driscoll in Albion gets romantically involved) and end up supporting them against the human invaders.

Albion also features catgirls with four breasts, only partially covered, despite generally being a PG-13 game at "worst" (the German release was recommended for 12yo+, a GOG re-release even for 6yo+). To quote a developer: "Two whole nipples! If you’re going to make a game in Europe, you should use any advantage you get." But to be fair to the US, there wasn't any pushback against the catgirl nipples when the game was localised for its market, despite US-American publishers generally asked for more violence and less sex, according to the same developer. A likely explaination is that the game simply wasn't popular enough for anybody to take a closer look.

Edited December 24, 2022 by ping

[Benice]

Jose Feliciano, the man who wrote Feliz Navidad, was born blind.

[Tsundwraith]

I'm drunk.

[ping]

Water boils at a temperature of 672 Rankine , depending on pressure.

[ping]

It is said that during the premiere of Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 96 in London, a chandelier fell from the ceiling of the hall it was performed in, right above the listeners' seats. However, just before this happened, the entire audience croweded around the orchestra, to watch Papa Haydn personally conduct the musicians from the piano. As a result, instead of crushing dozens of people, the falling chandelier only caused some minor bruises, which earned the symphony the nickname "the Miracle".

...however, this whole story was misattributed. Papa Haydn is still the accidental hero of the story, but it happened in 1795, not 1791, during the premiere of his Symphony No. 102, not 96.

[Benice]

The number of churches in East Timor increased from 100 to 800 in a span of 20 years. Considering that its second-largest city presently has a population of 17,000, that's a lot of churches.

[Benice]

Eggplants, originating from either south or east Asia, are so named because they were considered purely ornamental in Europe: The white variety of them was often considered the most beautiful, and its fruit indeed looked uncannily like chicken eggs.

Edited January 16 by Benice

[Benice]

The people whose faces are covered on Green Day's iconic album Nimrod are Frederick Banting and Charles Best, the co-discoverers of insulin.

[Chad Narukami]

The longest video game on record is The Longing, it is your duty to stay in a palace until the main character awakens. As soon as you start, the game inevitably counts down the 400 days - even when you stop playing and exit the game

[Tsundwraith]

Shrimp-kun thinks I’m a tsundere for some reason.

[Benice]

The countries which have likely been invaded the most are China and India.