› added 5 years ago

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TIL than in the 1800's, Americans drank, on average, 90 bottles of whiskey per year, or 1.7 bottles per week. This was because at the time, whiskey was sold at twenty-five cents a gallon, making it cheaper than wine, beer, tea, coffee and even milk.

p89J4 TIL that the word quarantine comes from an Italian variant of ‘quaranta giorni’, meaning forty days, which was the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague epidemic. They would fly this flag known as “Yellow Jack”.
QNj8a TIL Lee Harvey Oswald's Russian-born widow still lives in the US (she's been a naturalized citizen since 1989). She has 3 kids (2 daughters with Oswald, 1 son with 2nd husband) and still advocates the theory that Oswald was innocent.
X0jlR TIL the U.S. pays the Cuban government $4,085 annually in rent for the 45-square-mile naval base at Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. has leased Guantanamo Bay from Cuba for more than 50 years. Cuba has refused to cash the checks because it hasn’t recognized the legitimacy of the lease.
neyaW TIL a study on cutting in lines found that one person cutting in line has a 54% chance that others in the line will object, and that this jumps to 91.3% when it’s 2 people cutting in line.
epRwb TIL: Momofuku Ando, the inventor of insta ramen believed his noodles could cure world hunger. Over the decades he would shout quotes to his employees which includes, "Mankind is noodlekind", "What are you doing now?", and "Peace will come when people have food" which are in the employee handbook.