› added 7 years ago

155

TIL things about lettuce, naturally grown wild lettuce contains tropane alkaloids, the active ingredient in cocaine.

Read more qi.com

via reddit.com

4OlJ TIL the physical document that dissolved the Soviet Union is missing
mJWE TIL the term “mark” (for a gullible person) originated at carnivals when workers operating games of chance would give a patron a slap on the back with a dust covered hand, “marking” him as a sucker for other carnival operators.
D5wg TIL that in 1997, a UNICEF delegation determined that North Korean hospitals did not even have thermometers or other basic medical equipment.
mxpXM TIL that during the Great Leap Forward, when Chinese sparrows were deemed a pest and tried to be exterminated, some of the sparrows found refuge at the Polish Embassy in Beijing. The Embassy refused to scare away the birds and was surrounded by people playing on drums causing the sparrows to die.
XER1D TIL that in 2012, a uk couple jokingly invited Queen Elizabeth II to their wedding. She stopped by and said hello