› added 4 months ago

18

TIL: There is a pastry known as Cassatella di sant'Agata, or as translated, Saint Agatha's Breasts. It was named after Agatha who was tortured by having her breasts cut off. They are round shaped sweets made with sponge cake, soaked in rosolio, and filled with cheese, chocolate, and candied fruit.

N7kyQ TIL that on May 19th 1989, CBS broke into their primetime programming for over half an hour to broadcast a live dispute between the CBS News team and representatives of the Chinese government. (The government was terminating all foreign broadcasts in a lead up to the Tiananmen Square Massacre.)
WkMko TIL Charles Darwin & his wife were first cousins. They had 10 kids, 7 making it to adulthood. Worried that his marriage had something to do with the deaths, he began to experiment with plants. He learned that with any kind of breeding, it's better to cross-breed than to keep relatives together.
e9xn TIL Charles Steinmetz, the Wizard of Schenectady, listened to a problem generator for two days before marking a spot and telling engineers to replace sixteen windings from a field coil. He itemized the $10,000 invoice thusly: Marking spot - $1; Knowing where to mark - $9,999.
6nmW TIL 12 Capuchin monkeys were given one token a day to be used toward buying fruit. Not long after the study began, one monkey was observed giving his token to a female monkey in exchange for sex. The token was then handed over and immediately used to buy a grape.
7rAab TIL of Paul D. Hubbard (1871–1946) who was a deaf American football player who is credited with inventing the modern huddle. Hubbard was a quarterback on the Gallaudet football team and he started the huddle to prevent the opposing team from reading their sign language.