› added 5 years ago

148

TIL destitute mothers would leave a playing card when abandoning their child. If the card was torn in half, it meant that the mother would someday return with her half of the card to claim the child. If card was whole, it meant that the child was fully abandoned and the mother would not return.

pYEWb TIL that at age 16, Einstein took the entrance exam for the college, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and he failed it. The language and history sections were the sections he struggled on. He did well on the math and science sections.
KYkQ4 TIL that Joseph Guillotin, the namesake for the infamous guillotine, actually opposed capital punishment entirely but felt he wouldn't garner enough support to do away with it entirely. He advocated for the guillotine because it was more humane than many alternative execution methods.
PYmxw TIL Volcano Surfing or Volcano Boarding, is a sport performed on volcano slopes. Potential dangers include falling off and getting cut by the rough volcanic ash, breathing poisonous gasses, contracting histoplasmosis (otherwise known as 'caver's disease'), or being hit by flying molten lava
neZ99 TIL that the cone snail, one of the most venomous animals on earth, releases a cloud of insulin when a fish swims by, causing it to go into hypoglycemic shock, immobilizing it so it can inject the fish with a cocktail of up to 200 toxins
epPgD TIL YouTube’s subscribe button lights up whenever someone says to “Subscribe” in the video.