› added 5 years ago

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TIL although buttons are about 5,000 years old, functional buttons with buttonholes for fastening clothes only appeared in the 13th century. For millenia, they had only been used ornamentally, or as seals.

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a8PdM TIL Aristotle supported infant exposure in ancient Greece, arguing deformed babies "shall not live." Unwanted kids (often girls or sickly) were left outdoors to die "naturally"—seen as less brutal than direct killing.
loK7r TIL as Lt. Dan Inouye was about to toss a grenade at a German machine gun nest, a Nazi shot his arm off with an RPG. Undaunted, Inouye pulled the live grenade from his severed hand, tossed it, put his gun in his left hand, then wiped out three machine gun nests and killed 25 Nazis on his own.
QXaa TIL that Moses and the Israelites probably crossed the “Reed Sea”, not the “Red Sea.” The shallow, now-dry lake bogged down the wheels of the pursuant Egyptian chariots and allowed Moses to escape to the Sinai Peninsula.
61yZ TIL that in 400 BC Persian engineers could store ice, in the desert, in the middle of summer.
ZpALa TIL Female Kangaroos Have Three Vaginas. Marsupials, including the most popular one, the kangaroo, are equipped with a total of three vaginas. Three vaginas, two uteri, all there to serve their own joey-bearing purpose.