› added 7 years ago

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TIL in 1923, a Mississippi association developed an influential set of recommendations about street-sign shapes whose impact is still felt today. The recommendations were based on a simple, albeit not exactly intuitive, idea: the more sides a sign has, the higher the danger level it invokes.

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45oX TIL the ancient Babylonians worked out that there are solar eclipses that occur 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours apart. This period, 223 lunar cycles, is called the Saros cycle. The 1999 eclipse and this year’s eclipse are Saros cycle solar eclipses.
M7ZMb TIL: That Quentin Tarantino kept the only copy of the third act of the script to 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood' in a safe to prevent it from being prematurely released. Brad Pitt later revealed that the only other copy of the script was burned by Tarantino.
xV4N7 TIL The Ming Dynasty did not have the Ancient Chinese Secret Commercial, much less the Calgon. They use artificial alkali to clean their clothes. This gives us an idea of what detergent the ancient Chinese used. A very good Ming Dynasty blog post.
OorVe TIL that in 1985, the CIA killed 80 civilians and injured 200 in a botched attempt to assassinate Mohammad Fadlallah. This event is known in Lebanon as the Bir al-Abd massacre.
KRoa TIL that many Asians wear surgical masks not only to stop viruses from spreading, but also because women want to avoid having to put on make-up before hitting the streets. Pop stars, actresses and models also wear them to avoid getting recognized in public and getting caught by paparazzi.