› added 4 months ago

14

TIL that until 1956, French schoolchildren got served wine with lunch, and apparently beer and cider were available as well. In 1956, they decided giving children alcohol might not be the best idea, after which wine and beer became only allowed for… kids 14 and up.

X0AnE TIL the co-founder of Encyclopædia Britannica was a 4'6" tall Scot with crooked legs and an enormous nose that he would sometimes augment with a papier-mache version. He deliberately rode the tallest horse available in Edinburgh, dismounting by a ladder to the cheers of onlookers.
0yw5 TIL Ben Stein’s famous lecture about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in “Ferris Buller’s Day Off” was not originally in the script. Stein, by happenstance, was lecturing off-camera to the amusement of extra’s who laughed so hard director Hughes told Ben to do that lecture for camera.
v1w74 TIL If you take the long side of A4 paper and divide it by the short end you get root 2. They do this so that when you fold it in half, it stays the same ratio so there’s no distortion.
gMRRb TIL: The rumored ancient Egyptian city of Thonis (Heracleion), said to be the most significant port in the region before Alexandria was established, had become a legend. It was lost to myth until archaeologist Franck Goddio and team happened upon its ruins --underwater, several miles off the coast.
yVKEv TIL: The common birds around your yard often sleep nearby in flocks in trees, but not in nests--they abandon those soon after their eggs hatch. Birds on the edges of flocks often sleep with one eye open, including ducks that roost in water. Birds in the center sleep with both eyes shut.