› added 5 years ago

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TIL in 2004 a woman in Texas was arrested and faced a year in jail for selling a vibrator to two undercover cops posing as a married couple at a private party

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via reddit.com

QOBa TIL the sandwich was supposedly invented by the Earl of Sandwich, who was so addicted to gambling that he refused to leave the table for meals, and demanded something he could eat with one hand. It caught on amongst other players, who ordered “the same as sandwich” - thus, “the sandwich”.
WkBjA TIL Pope Gregory IX's association of cats with witchcraft led to the wholesale slaughter of the critters, and some scholars believe believe that by the 1300’s, Europe’s cat numbers were sufficiently depleted to prevent them from killing rats and mice, allowing the bubonic plague to spread.
b6Zn0 TIL: the term is milquetoast (timid, weak, unassertive), not milk toast. It originates from the 1924 comic strip character Caspar Milquetoast. However, the origin is that he's named after a "weak", bland dish of...milk toast (buttered toast served in a shallow bowl of warm milk).
9LMB TIL it only took 70 years for the lizards in parts of the USA to adapt to fire ants – they now have longer legs and new behaviors that aid them in escaping from the danger
yQkJp TIL of "White Friday"; during World War 1 in Italy an avalanche struck an army barracks killing 270 soldiers. Both Italian and Austrian sides then deliberately fired shells into the weakened snowpacks in an attempt to bury the other side. 10,000 people were killed altogether.