Interesting Wikipedia articles for killing time and expanding your mind!!
Help me start my first non-poker thread.
Post interesting random Wikipedia entries about something people have never heard of or thought about much that is interesting.
Post some kind of teaser explaining why each of these articles is interesting
If this is retarded oh well. If its been done, kill it. If not, help me waste time.
I'll start:
Giacomo Casanova
"Casanova had dug up a freshly buried corpse in order to play a practical joke on an enemy and exact revenge—but the victim went into a paralysis, never to recover."
Dona Paz
"was a Philippine-registered passenger ferry that sank after colliding with the MT Vector on December 20, 1987. With a death toll of at least 4,375 people"
Coconut Crab
"is the largest land-living arthropod in the world, and is probably at the upper limit of how big terrestrial animals with exoskeletons can become in today's atmosphere"
My Dad's job, he was helping set up an exam board over there. I was only little so don't remember a huge amount, but my younger brother was born there and my Dad also played a few games for their national football/soccer team. Kinda semi-interesting facts if ever have to do those stupid icebreaker games at work and stuff!
Here's a short, but interesting one. A forum reg in LNL just had his car stolen (Hyundai without immobilizer, ldo) via the side window being broken and the hack exploit. Found this entry on "ninja rocks" as likely technique for quietly breaking the window.
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Emanuela_Orlandi"]Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi
[/URL] - Bizarre case of the disappearance of a Vatican teenager 40 years ago, with information still coming out about it today.
I was expecting to just read the summary, but read it all. Really fascinating. I didn't realize just how small the Vatican is, only 600 or so people in 1983.
In honour of the London Marathon tomorrow, 120 years ago...
1904 Summer Olympics – Men's marat...
The men's marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, United States, took place on August 30 of that year, over a distance of 24 miles 1500 yards (40 km).[1]
It proved to be a bizarre affair due to poor organization and officiating.[2] The race was run during the hottest part of the day on dusty country roads, with only two sources of water. While 40 athletes entered, 32 athletes representing seven nations (US, France, Cuba, Greece, South Africa, Great Britain, and Canada) ultimately started, with only 14 managing to finish the race.[3]
Frederick Lorz crossed the finish line first and was hailed as the winner, but he was disqualified after it was discovered that he had hitched a ride in a car for 11 miles (17.7 km) after having supposedly dropped out of the race. The actual winner, Thomas Hicks, was near collapse and hallucinating when he crossed the finish line, a side effect of being administered brandy, raw eggs, and strychnine by his trainers. The fourth-place finisher, Andarín Carvajal, took a nap during the race after eating spoiled apples.
The Burari deaths were a ritual mass suicide of eleven family members of the Chundawat family from Burari, Delhi, India, in 2018. Ten people were found hanged, while the oldest family member, the grandmother, was strangled.
The reasoning for the death was soon found out thanks to a number of diaries scattered around the house dating back to 2007, as well as testimony from neighbours and extended family members. The diaries details over a decade of mounting mass delusion in the household, where they all believed they were being guided by the spirit of their dead patriarch, Bhopal Singh, who used his son Lalit as a medium.
1st quote is from wiki article linked on top, 2nd quote is from the website where I found out about this and where there's also a video of the aftermath that I will obviously not link on here but shouldn't be too hard to find with some google if you're a morbid mfer like me.
1st quote is from wiki article linked on top, 2nd quote is from the website where I found out about this and where there's also a video of the aftermath that I will obviously not link on here but shouldn't be too hard to find with some google if you're a morbid mfer like me.
I saw some documentary about this, I think...can't for the life of me remember what it was, tho
I'm sure this has been posted somewhere in the thread but even if one new person see it is worth it, found it during yesterday's lunch and it made my day:
"[U]Sōkaiya[/U] are specialized racketeers unique to Japan, and often associated with the yakuza, who extort money from or blackmail companies by threatening to publicly humiliate companies and their management, usually in their annual meeting"
My favorite part of the article is this one:
"Modern sōkaiya have developed other, similar methods to accomplish their goals. One less subtle example is the banzai sōkaiya, who disrupt business places with their cries of "Banzai!" and praise of the Emperor until they are quietly paid to leave."
Lawrence Joseph Bader (December 2, 1926 – September 16, 1966), also known as John Francis "Fritz" Johnson, was an American cookware salesman from Akron, Ohio, who disappeared while on a fishing trip on Lake Erie on May 15, 1957. Declared dead in 1960, Bader was found alive five years later as John Francis "Fritz" Johnson, a local television personality living in Omaha, Nebraska.[1][2] The incident is described by author Jay Robert Nash as "one of the most baffling amnesia disappearances on record, a weird story forever unanswered."
Very interesting. Seems like the dude faked his own death to start life over.
He was like, "I sell pots and pans. I should be in TV, dammit!"
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichborne_case"]Tichborne case
[/URL]
The Tichborne case was a legal cause célèbre that captivated Victorian England in the 1860s and 1870s. It concerned the claims by a man sometimes referred to as Thomas Castro or as Arthur Orton, but usually termed "the Claimant", to be the missing heir to the Tichborne baronetcy. He failed to convince the courts, was convicted of perjury and served a long prison sentence.
If you think Trump's trial is a circus, this is something else!
Inspired a Simpsons episode and Zadie Smith's latest book.
jfc that's grim
That is beyond ****ed.
Jōhatsu (Japanese: 蒸発, Hepburn: jōhatsu, lit. "evaporation") or jouhatsu refers to the people in Japan who purposely vanish from their established lives without a trace.[1] This phenomenon can be seen all over the world, such as the United States, China, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Germany.[1][2] However, it is likely more prevalent in Japan, given certain cultural factors.
1st time reading thread
Home Run oddity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Slam...
For some baseball bettors, the ultimate Bad Beat.
so basically, IRL ghosting
The Kola Superdeep Borehole SG-3 (Russian: Кольская сверхглубокая скважина СГ-3, romanized: Kol'skaya sverkhglubokaya skvazhina SG-3) is the deepest human-made hole on Earth, which attained maximum true vertical depth of 12,262 metres (40,230 ft; 7.619 mi) in 1989.
Now just a little metal plate in a bunch of rubble.
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincos_language"]Lincos language
[/URL]
Lincos (an abbreviation of the Latin phrase lingua cosmica) is a constructed language first described in 1960 by Dr. Hans Freudenthal in his book Lincos: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse, Part 1. It is a language designed to be understandable by any possible intelligent extraterrestrial life form, for use in interstellar radio transmissions.
huge rabbit hole potential
huge rabbit hole potential
over/under on the number of deaths associated with lockheed starts at u2
lives of cia pilots were tallied under the grist column of complex military-industrial financial calculations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_So...
"Souza was commonly known for presenting the controversial news program Canal Livre" he uses this to become a successful politician in Brazil until "In 2009, Souza attracted international media attention when he was accused of hiring hitmen to kill five people to increase the ratings of his program."
huge rabbit hole potential
agree - I just spent 10 mins on the Lion of Fallujah and had to drag myself out of there
