› added 2 years ago

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TIL that the eight Ivy League colleges (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale) are not actually a sports league, but rather an athletic conference.

Read more insidehighered.com

via reddit.com

R5nLQ TIL that in 1846 Christian Friedrich Schönbein discovered a formula for nitrocellulose when working in his kitchen. He spilled nitric acid and sulfuric acid on the kitchen table, wiped it up with a cotton apron, then hung it on the stove door to dry. As soon as it was dry, the apron ignited.
bE70 TIL that wristwatches were almost exclusively worn by women, men used pocket-watches. Wristwatches were first worn by military men towards the end of the 19th century as a way to synchronise maneuvers during war without revealing the plan to the enemy through signaling.
Z8b4R TIL Peppa Pig has been blocked from an online video channel in China after becoming associated with “gangster” subculture.
LkK7V TIL that in 2016, an Italian court ruled that stealing small quantities of food to satisfy a vital need for food does not constitute a crimе, overturning a 6-month jаil sentence and a €100 fine that a hоmeless man who had stolen cheese and sausages (worth €4.07) from a supermarket had been convictеd
pYeW4 TIL the 1970s hit "No Sugar Tonight" was inspired when BTO singer Randy Bachman was fearing a street confrontation with a biker gang. The biker's girlfriend suddenly drove up and yelled at him for not watching the kids and taking out the trash, and there would be "no sugar tonight".