› added 7 years ago

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TIL that Carl Linnaeus was invited by the mayor of Hamburg to see his taxidermied 7-headed hydra. Linnaeus quickly determined it was a fake held together with glue, and had to flee the city after he publicly said so, ruining the mayor's hopes of selling it for a large fortune.

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y0v8 TIL that in 1963 Frank Sinatra’s son was kidnapped and the kidnappers demanded to be called on payphone, during one call Frank ran out of coins and thought it cost him his son. Thankfully he got his son back but he was never without a roll dimes again for the rest of his life.
QNnNd TIL the first astronaut suits were designed by Playtex. The bra and tampon company.
nvkb TIL in 1934 Philo Farnsworth and RCA went to court to establish whose patent marked the beginning of TV broadcasting. In court, Farnsworth’s high school physics teacher testified that the boy, at 14 years old, first described to him the idea for a scanning tube, better known as a television.
DQpPV TIL there are more people who wear glasses/corrective eyewear than people who don’t. This is true in all countries
Edpx TIL a German landlord evicted a tenant after they spead Surströmming (fermented fish) brine on the stairs. The tenant sued, but the court ruled in favor of the landlord when he opened a can of Surströmming in the courtroom.