› added 12 years ago

200

TIL That in the United States it is illegal to transport Pornographic Materials over state lines. And is punishable by fine or imprisonment up to five years.

Read more law.cornell.edu

via reddit.com

E1Od TIL a janitor invented flamin’ hot cheetos.
m1WGo TIL that the forerunner of the bicycle, the Dandy horse, was invented largely as a result of the climatic changes brought about in Europe by the explosion of Mount Tambora (1815), which widespread crop failures which have led to the deaths of thousands of horses, means of transport at the time.
6E67J TIL Jules Verne's wrote a novel in 1863 which predicted gas-powered cars, fax machines, wind power, missiles, electric street lighting, maglev trains, the record industry, the internet, and feminism. It was lost for over 100 years after his publisher deemed it too unbelievable to publish.
dDXQK TIL that in a series of experiments in the 1950s, Solomon Asch asked a group of actors and a single test subject what the longest line was in a "vision test". The actors would intentionally answer incorrectly, causing the subject to also answer incorrectly, despite it being very obvious.
x605w TIL in the US there was an "oyster craze" of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Due to advances in oyster farm technology, between 1880 and 1910, as many as 160 million pounds of oysters were harvested a year, and in 1909 the price per pound fell to less than half of beef.