› added 8 years ago

207

TIL the earliest known vending machine dates back to first-century AD Greece. Hero of Alexandria, a Greek engineer and mathematician created a machine that accepted a coin and then dispensed holy water.

Read more wikipedia.org

via ift.tt

4wwb TIL that at a London Gentleman’s Club, to avoid confusion, all male staff members are referred to as ‘George’. This caused a dilemma when the first (and so far, only) female steward was hired in the 1980s. The problem was solved when it was decided that she would be called 'Georgina’
yQk6V TIL that the famous photo of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue was taken on his 72nd birthday when he was asked by a photographer to smile for the camera. After smiling a dozen times for previous photos that day, he playfully stuck out his tongue instead.
4XnWa TIL in 1955, someone dropped a 600-year-old plaster Buddha Statue only to discover the plaster was covering a solid gold statue beneath
LkAWm TIL there's a place in the coast of Namibia called "Skeleton coast" and nicknamed "The Land God made in Anger" and "The Gates of Hell", that holds the remains of over a thousand shipwrecks and, by land, can only be left by crossing hundreds of miles of marshes and desert.
8eQJV TIL of Stanley Adams who became a whistleblower against Hoffmann-LaRoche in 1973. His name leaked, and was sued for industrial espionage facing 20 years in prison (serving only 6 months). During the trial his wife commited suicide. In 1994 he was caught hiring an assassin to murder his second wife