› added 3 months ago

12

TIL at Germany’s Klaasohm festival on Borkum Island, masked men traditionally chased women and beat them with a cow horn, a ritual linked to whaling history. After public outrage and political intervention, the practice was abolished.

Read more bluewin.ch

via reddit.com

Lkjdd TIL that Austria has a nuclear power plant that costed more than a billion euros to make which has never been turned on. This is because the government held a vote on whether to use nuclear power or not after it was made, and 50.5% voted no.
QN4wL TIL that from 1925 to 1939, a group of corporations called the Phoebus cartel, including General Electric and Philips, coordinated competition among lightbulb manufacturers. To drive repeat sales, they fined companies which produced lightbulbs with an average lifespan exceeding 1,000 hours.
lo68a TIL In 1847, with a population of just 20,000 people, Toronto took in 38,560 Irish famine victims
BrXRx TIL siblings born within a year of each other are called "Irish twins", which was a derogatory term referring to poor Catholic families with many successive children
a8e9A TIL there is a death metal band called Hatebeak. Their singer is an African grey parrot.