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

[indigoasis]

1 hour ago, Espurrhoodie said:

I think I remember reading somewhere that the first Your Mom joke was in Babylon? I can't remember where I read it, though.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-worlds-oldest-yo-mama-joke-is-3-500-years-old-5880232

It was apparently inscribed on a tablet with other crude jokes on it. Anyway, you're right, what was on the tablet is the oldest your mom joke. 

[Espurrhoodie]

9 minutes ago, indigoasis said:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-worlds-oldest-yo-mama-joke-is-3-500-years-old-5880232

It was apparently inscribed on a tablet with other crude jokes on it. Anyway, you're right, what was on the tablet is the oldest your mom joke. 

And apparently the "your mom" joke exists in every language.

[Benice]

15 hours ago, indigoasis said:

Haha, I remember reading that in Titus Andronicus. I think that may have also possibly been the first yo mama joke?

Titus Andronicus, what a lovely story! Titus kills the Goth queen's sons, puts then ina pie and feeds it to their mom! Shakespeare was truly gifted.

 

The man who invented dynamite is the Nobel Nobel peace prizes are named for.

(Alfred Nobel, by the way.)

Edited January 28, 2020 by Benice

[Emperor_Siegfried]

In the middle ages, bedding was such a luxury that people would leave it in their wills.

[indigoasis]

Before pillows were the pillows we know today, they were made of stone.

[Emperor_Siegfried]

The national animal of Scotland is the unicorn.

[Hawkwing]

In Metal Gear Solid 3, if Snake wears white clothing, bees will rarely sting him. If he wears black or darker colored camouflage, bees will attack him more aggressively.

[Morgan--Grandmaster]

Some turtles breathe through their butts.

[indigoasis]

God Shattering Star from Fire Emblem: Three Houses does not appear in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

[DragonFlames]

The story of Three Houses was at least partially inspired by the Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

[Emperor_Siegfried]

The first pair of Nike running shoes was made in a waffle iron.

[Benice]

You actually have a 50% chance to win the lottery; you either win, or you don't.

[DragonFlames]

There is a conspiracy theory that at least 300 years of human history never actually happened.

[Emperor_Siegfried]

After 3 years of owning a Switch, I finally played it docked.

[AnonymousSpeed]

B. F. Skinner attempted to condition pigeons to guide missiles.

[DragonFlames]

Dolphins can recognize each other by the sound of their voices.

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

We all have thousands of ugly lookin' bugs on our body, yet, we can't even see them due to them being so microscopic. 

[indigoasis]

Mr. Krabs sold Spongebob's soul for 62 cents.

[AnonymousSpeed]

5 hours ago, indigoasis said:

Mr. Krabs sold Spongebob's soul for 62 cents.

I'm sure an unhealthy proportion of us knew that.

***

Ecco the Dolphin was programmed by a Hungarian team during the Cold War, who often faced difficulties communicating with and selling to capitalist Western audiences. The game intentionally features no humans in order to lend itself a mysterious, distant atmosphere.

[Benice]

On 3/9/2020 at 3:08 AM, DragonFlames said:

There is a conspiracy theory that at least 300 years of human history never actually happened.

That's a good one.

There's also the one where Shah Jahn, (I think that's what his name was) DIDN'T have the Taj Mahal built! Apparently there's a door that's 300 years older than when history says it was built.

One of the popes was maybe a girl?

[DragonFlames]

13 hours ago, Benice said:

One of the popes was maybe a girl?

Ah, yes, I heard about that one! Pope Johanna. She got burned at the stake after they found out she wasn't male, if I remember correctly.

---

The popular Disney movie "Mulan" is based on a Chinese fairytale. And there also exists a Chinese live action movie of it (which is better than the Disney version, imo).

[Benice]

4 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

Ah, yes, I heard about that one! Pope Johanna. She got burned at the stake after they found out she wasn't male, if I remember correctly.

I heard she died during childbirth? There' a LOT of different accounts of this Pope John/Joan thing.

[Interdimensional Observer]

20 hours ago, Benice said:

There's also the one where Shah Jahn, (I think that's what his name was) DIDN'T have the Taj Mahal built! Apparently there's a door that's 300 years older than when history says it was built.

Not sure of the circumstances behind this rumor, but I am aware that Hindu nationalists like discrediting Islam from having made any positive contribution in Indian history (and, as of this year, declare all Indian Muslims noncitizens to eventually exile/imprison/kill the hundreds of millions altogether). This smell like it could be one of the Hindu nationalists' erroneous rewritings of history.

 

--

Flipping through one of my favorite history books from college, one set of statistics of many about Europe in the 1600 and 1700s.

• Britain:
  • 400 books published in the 1630s. 
  • 56000 books published in the 1790s.
• Russia
  • 87 books published in the period 1725-1729
  • 300 books published in the period 1796-1800

Anyone want the brief excerpt from a sample work of French literary religious pornography in the period it provides?

Edited March 25, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[AnonymousSpeed]

22 hours ago, Benice said:

There's also the one where Shah Jahn, (I think that's what his name was)

I think was Shah Jahan.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Not sure of the circumstances behind this rumor, but I am aware that Hindu nationalists like discrediting Islam from having made any positive contribution in Indian history (and, as of this year, declare all Indian Muslims noncitizens to eventually exile/imprison/kill the hundreds of millions altogether). This smell like it could be one of the Hindu nationalists' erroneous rewritings of history.

It also sucks to be a Muslim in China, but it also sucks to be a woman in Saudi Arabia so I guess it balances out in a sick sort of way.

***

Following the death of Alexander the Great, his empire was divided into multiple kingdoms ruled by different members of the Diadochi (the generals and associates of Alexander who vied for control of territory he conquered). The general Seleucus I Nicator founded the Seleucid Dynasty / Empire, which assumed control of most of Alexander's Asian holdings, including Israel. In response to the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes defiling the Temple with an idol, the Israelites rebelled under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus, and it was during this time that the Hanukkah story occurred. This was the first in a series of Jewish revolts against the Seleucids which eventually lead to the creation of an independent Israeli kingdom under the Hasmonean dynasty.

However, the Hasmoneans were not descendants of David and were thus not seen as legitimate in the eyes of many Hebrews, an issue further exacerbated when they began to take on priest-like functions despite not being Levites either. This lead to yet more civil wars, during which both sides attempted to gain Roman support. That didn't really work out, believe it or not. The Herodic dynasty (named for the reason you think) supplanted the Hasmonean dynasty, being installed as a Roman client kingdom. In 6 AD, that client kingdom would be more directly annexed and replaced by the roman Province of Judea. This, in case you ever wondered, is why there's a King Herod when Jesus was born, but he was crucified under the governor Pontius Pilate.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

It also sucks to be a Muslim in China, but it also sucks to be a woman in Saudi Arabia so I guess it balances out in a sick sort of way.

Unless you're a Muslim woman in India stuck somewhere, probably rural, where there is no "enlightened" safe zone of religious tolerance nor gender/sexual freedom. Then you're persecuted by your government, and denied a say within your religio-societal group due to a harsh male monopoly on power.

 

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I think was Shah Jahan.

No, India was in the Scouring, and ruled by unemotional dragonkind. It's a lie that India for millions of years continentally drifted as a giant island/Australia, the truth is that it India has drifted dimensionally for that same period of time, returning to this world in almost the same spot where it last left from, but not exactly. The passage of time in Elibe relative to our world is 4.9 years per 1 second in our world. When Britain established its first colonial possessions in India in the decades after Shah Jahn's "death" (it's complicated, but he didn't die), they outlawed dimension drifting, and the prohibition has never been repealed by any Indian government.

And before you say "Jahn would never waste his time and effort on an extravagant tomb for a wife", you would be right. Humans think it's a tomb constructed in this world, it isn't, it shouldn't surprise you humans got it wrong, all so wrong. It's a countermeasure created while in Elibe to prevent dimensional drift from ruining dragonkind's cause. The Taj Mahal is directly linked to the Dragon Temple, and any dragon can instantly phase-shift from our world to Elibe from it. The copious precious stonework of the Taj is not really gemstone and minerals, it's fragments of draconic wisely conserved as dragonstones from many generations of losses against humans. They and everything else about the architecture was intended to maximize the transdimensional link. When India was abandoned by the dragons in increasing desperation, India was conquered by humanity, and some bigwig deemed the now-vacant Taj beautiful, gave it a new name (what the dragons called it is now lost to us), and insisted it was his through eternity.

 

--

John Spilsbury, apprentice to the British Royal Geographer during the reign of George III, invented the jigsaw puzzle in 1767. He took a map, placed it over a piece of wood, and carved the wood along the borders of the each country. He then had students reassemble the pieces to teach them geography. He then made a thriving business of dividing the world so people could learn to reunite it.