› added 2 years ago

90

TIL about the Glass Armonica, a musical instrument invented by Ben Franklin. Inspired by playing glass cups, bowls were mounted on a rotating spindle allowing a musician with wet fingers to play music. Mozart and Beethoven wrote for it but after 60 years strange rumors spread and it fell out of use.

8eKrL TIL George Washington's favorite food was hoecakes, a type of pancake made from cornbread.
e014g TIL the letters on hillsides were started by rivalries between High Schools and Universities as a way to mark their territory. The first three ‘mountain monograms’ were erected at Lahainaluna High, UC Berkeley, and BYU. They spread like wildfire in the Western US in the 20s and 30s.
yVGo8 TIL Barbie’s physical appearance was modeled on the German Bild Lilli doll, a risqué gag gift for men based upon a cartoon character featured in the West German newspaper Bild Zeitung.
VM9y0 TIL in the Catholic church, if a child is in peril of dying during delivery, the midwife may perform an emergency baptism. If the midwife is in doubt if the child still lives, she baptises the child saying: "In case you are able to receive the baptism, I baptise thee in the name of the Father etc"
69MXZ TIL that the IAU (International Astronomical Union) only recognizes 88 official constellations. Any pattern of stars that is not one of the 88 official constellations is called an asterism, with the most well-known ones being the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Orion's Belt, and the Summer Triangle.