› added 2 months ago

15

TIL some of the earliest sunglasses were crystal sunglasses used by judges in 12th century Chinese courts, to conceal their facial expressions while questioning witnesses. They were made from flat panes of smoky quartz.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

a46J TIL that before the dominance of HTML on the web, a protocol called GOPHER existed. Despite its linear navigation, lack of an hyperlink function, not having images, and the current lack of support from the main browsers, gopher:// sites such as Twitpher exist in a parallel, bizarre text driven web.
Qw6E TIL 95 percent of those of European origin can trace their maternal roots to one of seven women who lived between 10,000 and 45,000 years ago.
YpaB TIL there is a movie theatre in London that has volunteer “ninjas” that will “hush” obnoxious movie-goers.
NXx56 TIL researchers have found almost 10% of U.S. adults ages 65 and older have dementia, while another 22% have mild cognitive impairment.
kJdW5 TIL many people are not sure if Scranton, PA is a real city: the US version of The Office leads about 400 British/month and 110 Americans/month to search “Is Scranton a real place?"