› added 1 year ago

165

TIL that, in 1946, Ho Chi Min reached out to President Harry S. Truman and requested the United States’ support in ending French rule in Vietnam.

Read more theworld.org

via reddit.com

odyE TIL in Renaissance Italy, the Court Carver perfected the art of mid-air meat carving. To entertain guests he could lift a turkey in the air on a fork and rapidly cut the meat so that it rained down onto the diner’s plates in a decorative pattern of slices. Eggs and fruit were carved the same way.
AOr4 TIL there is a custom in Japan called “Namahage” in which men dressed up as demon-like monsters scare the living shit out of children who are “guilty of laziness or bad behavior” while parents smile and laugh while their children scream and cry in terror. (Video in comments)
kOJQe TIL that the ADE 651; an inert rod of metal with a plastic hinge, was sold as a bomb detector. It was used by the militaries of Iraq, Afghanistan and more than a dozen other countries for years before anyone noticed that it did nothing at all.
XEPQ6 TIL Contrary to popular lore, there was no epidemic of suicides in the wake of the Stock Market Crash of 1929. One contemporary reference to the myth was written by a British reporter who had been very badly burned in the market himself, the reporter’s name was Winston Churchill.
YW0A TIL that 68 people suffering from tinnitus (ringing in the ears) actually had their auditory nerves cut to stop the ringing, and more than half of them reported the ringing didn’t change - or got worse.