› added 10 years ago

189

TIL: in 1985 Father-In-Law of Howard Schultz sat him down to say “My daughter’s 7 months pregnant and it’s time her husband forgot his hobby and got a real job.” When Howard told his wife she said “No, we’re going to do it.” In 1986 the Schultz’s opened their 1st coffee bar and called it Starbucks

newLd TIL the name "Ouija board" came from a medium asking a Ouija board what they should call it. The board also told her it meant "Good luck." In a related circumstance, the medium acknowledged she wearing a locket with the picture of a woman with the name “Ouija” above her head.
VM4gG TIL that only two fragments of text predating Christianization in (Old High) German still survive, which refer to pagan beliefs. They are magic spells dating from the 9th century.
DGWv TIL: Dr Barry Marshal was convinced that H. pylori bacteria caused stomach ulcers, but no one believed him. Since it was illegal to test his theory on humans, he drank the bacteria himself, developed ulcers within days, treated them with antibiotics and went on to win a Nobel prize
Xoor TIL that a four-year-old boy named Roger Lausier was saved by a woman named Alice Blaise; nine years later, Roger saved Alice’s husband from drowning at the same beach.
RJbw TIL: Sexual reproduction for barnacles is difficult, as the organisms cannot leave their shells to mate. To facilitate genetic transfer between isolated individuals, barnacles have extraordinarily long penises⁠. Barnacles probably have the largest penis to body size ratio of the animal kingdom.