› added 10 years ago

175

TIL scaphism was a form of ancient punishment where the victim was tied and force-fed a rich diet of honey and milk, and then left in the sun. He developed diarrhea, while his accumulated excretions attracted flies and insects who then fed upon the victim’s exposed flesh.

Read more hexapolis.com

via reddit.com

exQb TIL carrots used to be available in purple and white until the 17th century when Dutch farmers succeeded in growing the first orange carrots in honour of the ruling House of Orange-Nassau.
xV8O5 TIL that capsaicin -- the compound that makes peppers hot -- only affects mammals, who would chew the seeds and destroy them. It doesn't affect birds, who swallow the seeds whole and help disperse them.
7rygL TIL of Fang Zheng, whose legs were run over by a tank during the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 while he was getting a fainted female student to safety. She refused to testify for him during the investigations and she would later claim that she was not with him during the incident.
5Vwy8 TIL Tom Cochrane, a Canadian rock artist, released a solo of his song “big leagues” in honour of the Humboldt broncos bus crash that killed 16 people from the team. The original song from 1988 and told the story of a parent whose son earned a scholarship with a US team before dying in a car crash.
J1gZ4 TIL: The world's tallest cut Christmas tree was a 67.36 m (221 ft) Douglas fir, which was erected and decorated at Northgate Shopping Center, Seattle, Washington in December 1950.