› added 5 years ago

344

TIL that women in Babylon were required to have done prostitution before they could marry!

Read more ishtartemple.org

via reddit.com

OGNaa TIL that "Blackboard Bold" (the style of writing used to represent number sets in maths, e.g. ℕ, ℚ, ℝ, or ℤ) only first emerged in the 1950s due to people "double striking" letters on a typewriter to make them bold. It subsequently got into maths in the 70s and onward.
j6p5j TIL that C. S. Lewis' first two names were Clive Staples
b6JKN TIL a "misconception in much of psychology is that [...] 'newer' brain structures were added over existing 'older' brain structures [e.g. reptilian]"; rather, "all vertebrate behavior" is based on "decision-making circuits", and "the prefrontal cortex [...] is not a uniquely human structure"
Wk0wY TIL Whitey Bulger was accused of firebombing the house in which John F. Kennedy was born in retaliation for Senator Edward Kennedy's support for school desegregation in September 1975.
LkaBZ TIL about Stuckie the coon hound that in 1960 chased a racoon 28 feet up inside the hollow trunk of a tree, then got stuck up there until loggers cut the tree down in 1980. He was mummified and almost perfectly preserved due to the tannins in the tree and inaccessibility to predators.