› added 12 years ago

85

TIL Adm. Grace Hopper basically invented high level programming using concepts that still apply today.

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6E4Xl TIL that workers at Yosemite National Park used to create a 3,000 foot "waterfall" of fire by building a massive bonfire at the top of Glacier Point and push the burning embers over the edge. The practice went on for almost 100 years and only ended in 1968.
kNy4 TIL in 1962, two American geologists found that a large rock face above a Peruvian town could collapse during an earthquake. The Peruvian government ordered the two to retract their work or face prison. Eight years later, an earthquake collapsed the rock face, killing 20,000 of the town’s residents.
kJla5 TIL the person who coined the phrase “the future is female”(sally miller gearhart believed that “The proportion of men must be reduced and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race”
ANL9n TIL Washing out the mouth with soap is a traditional form of physical punishment in the United States and United Kingdom from the late 19th century until the mid-20th century.
j6r9N TIL that in 1210, King John of England imprisoned a noble named Maud de Braose with her son William in a dungeon beneath Corfe Castle, and left there to starve to death. When their bodies were retrieved 11 days later, it was found that Maud had eaten parts of her son’s body before she died.