› added 4 months ago

17

TIL that in France, unwed women over 25 were called “Catherinettes” and wore garish yellow and green hats for good luck in finding husbands on November 25

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

4kXY6 TIL about Operation Rocky Top, an FBI investigation in 1986 to uncover illegal activities in charity bingo including the sale of illegal bingo licenses. In the end over 50 were convicted. Seven politicians were incarcerated which included the leader of the House of Representatives in Tennessee
jNj1Q TIL of a study that examined the brains of nuns who engaged in “centering prayer,” which is meant to create a feeling of oneness with God. The nuns’ brain scans showed similarities to people who use drugs like psilocybin mushrooms.
OoZBX TIL that "it was a dark and stormy night," a catchphrase that has become shorthand for bad writing, comes from the opening line of the 1830 novel "Paul Clifford" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The phrase was first used in print by Washington Irving in his 1809 "A History of New York."
yQ60J TIL during the 1860's, the Russian empire killed and expelled as much as 80-97% of their entire Circassian population, these events (now known as "The Circassian genocide") are still denied by Russia, and Georgia is the only country to recognize it WORLDWIDE.
j697Q TIL about the dead internet theory, an online conspiracy theory that asserts that the internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content manipulated by algorithmic curation to intentionally manipulate the population and minimize organic human activity