› added 10 years ago

97

TIL that public hangings at the West Virginia State Penitentiary were stopped in 1931 when a prisoner was decapitated by the hanging process

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APXx TIL there was a ban on sliced bread in the US in 1943.
B5Ke TIL the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia employs 74 cats to take care of rodents. These cats are so important that they even have their own press secretary, and there are special kitchens in the Hermitage that prepare food for them.
7LVZ TIL serial killer Rodney Alcala acted as his own attorney in his trial. For five hours he interrogated himself on the witness stand, asking questions addressed to “Mr. Alcala” in a deep voice and answering them in his normal voice.
pnB4 TIL Halliburton once tried to patent patenting
78pkr TIL The star Betelgeuse has been recorded since Chinese antiquity, with notes of the star then being yellow, by the time of Ptolemy it was orange, and now red. The star is the tenth brightest in the sky and expected to go supernova in the next 100,000 years.