› added 8 years ago

212

TIL: In 18th century England, umbrellas were strictly taboo and seen as a detestable, effeminate contraption. Cab drivers saw them as a threat to their business and grew violent towards umbrella owners.

Read more atlasobscura.com

via reddit.com

xd1w TIL about the Tetris effect, in which people who play Tetris for extended periods of time start seeing falling tetris blocks in their sleep as well as regularly identifying tetromino shapes in their everyday life, such as the layout of boxes on supermarket shelves or patterns on certain buildings.
wLeL7 TIL That the theory of plate tectonics was not widely accepted by the geoscientific community until the 50s or 60s.
l9pa TIL the average worker in the US today would only have to work 11 hours per week to be as productive as his fellow worker in 1950.
rgmy TIL Coffin Torpedoes were invented in the 1800s to prevent grave robberies. They fired if the coffin was opened.
XNbE TIL the SR-71 BlackBird traveled from New York to London in under 2 hours