› added 5 years ago

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TIL there's a surviving text of an 1121 law in Baghdad requiring all Jewish women to wear at all times: 1 yellow star on their head, 1 yellow star on their neck, a necklace w/ a lead plaque that said "Dhimmi" (ie "non-Muslim"), 1 red shoe, 1 black shoe & a bell on their neck or their shoes

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WlrN TIL that Ernst Leitz, the founder of Leica camera, smuggled Jews out of Germany by giving them jobs overseas and he gave each one a camera as a symbol of freedom
KO494 TIL approximately 30 to 50% of East Asian are intolerant to alcohol due to a faulty version of the aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) gene. It may cause flushing on a person's face and body and other symptoms including nausea, headache and general physical discomfort after drinking alcohol.
xVOMo TIL that the handrail around the turret in some early WW2 tanks is an antenna. The presence of a handrail antenna would reveal to the enemy that the tank is a command tank, which made it a primary target in the combat. Because of this, it was eventually replaced with a whip antenna.
n6md TIL In 2007, a black girl in Paris, Texas was sentenced to up to seven years in a juvenile prison for shoving a teacher’s aide at school, while a white girl was sentenced by the same judge to probation for burning down her parents’ house.
Z8y9B TIL that when the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, they left behind a white pouch containing a silicon disc slightly bigger than a silver dollar. Inscribed in microscopic font on the disc are 73 messages, each from a different country, expressing wishes of goodwill and peace.