› added 5 years ago

532

TIL muskrats are considered legally fish by the Catholic diocese of southeast Michigan, allowing them to be eaten on Fridays during Lent. When asked about the ruling the local bishop wrote that "anyone who could eat muskrat was doing penance worthy of the greatest of the saints."

Read more detroitcatholic.com

via reddit.com

awvdN TIL about a man named Wally Wallington, a retired construction worker, who has figured out a way for a single person to manipulate monoliths using only wooden levers, pebbles, and counterweights, and who may have solved the mystery of Stonehenge.
6aRm TIL TIL 98 years ago Indian Meat Packing Company agreed to sponsor an employee team for $500. Three years later they dropped their ownership. The Packers are worth more than 1.4 billion today.
mNGx TIL billionaire J. Paul Getty refused to pay $17m ransom for his kidnapped Grandson. When the teenager’s severed ear arrived, he agreed $3m but only paid $2.2m… the maximum that would be tax deductable. He lent the other $800k to his son on the condition that he pay it back with 4% interest.
Rkjj TIL that Ernest Hemingway grew paranoid and talked about FBI spying on him later in life. He was treated with electroshock. It was later revealed that he was in fact watched, and Edgard Hoover personally placed him under survelliance.
N7OR6 TIL that you have to weight your bags to take the train in Canada