› added 12 years ago

509

TIL there is only one video of Mark Twain in existence and it was shot by Thomas Edison. [1:47] (X-Post from /r/videos)

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GAKkj TIL about Chica Da Silva, a mixed slave woman born in Brazil. She used her wiles and hid her identity to become the most powerful woman in 1700s Brazil.
gMe49 TIL that in the 1950s a man said to his lover that no woman could write erotica like the Marquis de Sade. In response, Anne Desclos wrote a novel that was so obscene that the French authorities tried to take the publisher to court, and Desclos kept her name secret for forty years.
b6ZN0 Today I learned Winston Churchill topped the list of greatest Britons ever lived ahead of Issac Newton, Shakespeare, Darwin and Princess Diana.
dlYK TIL George Lucas offered his game developers the choice between naming a villain “Darth Icky” and “Darth Insanius”, and was completely serious
JYl7l TIL people from slavic countries such as Poland, Bulgaria, and Ukraine have genetically shallower hip sockets. Colloquially known as "Dalmatian hip" among hip surgeons, this hip structure helps facilitate a deeper squat. The "slav squat" may have a biomechanical basis.