› added 12 years ago

95

TIL that the terms “upper case” and “lower case” come from the printing press days, when type blocks were stored in cases on shelves. The capital letters were stored on the upper shelf because they were used less, and the smaller letters on the lower shelf. Hence, upper and lower case of letters.

xDOo TIL that Pepsi created a contest where people could win a car if they picked the right key for it from their provided options. However, when a man was able to open it, he was sued by Pepsi, since the contest was supposed to be impossible to win because the right key for the car wasn’t available.
evX5 TIL that Janet Leigh, Marion Crane in Psycho, was so affected by the shower scene that she no longer took showers unless she absolutely had to. She would lock all doors and windows and leave the shower door open. She never realized until she watched the film “how vulnerable and defenseless one is”.
EgmD0 TIL that the one of the last major eruptions of Mt. Vesuvius prior to the destruction of Pompeii was around 1995 B.C, 2000 years before 79 A.D. It destroyed every bronze age settlement in the area. Thousands of footprints left behind by fleeing survivors can today be seen in the hardened flow stone.
6W4Q TIL French Queen Marie Antoinette had a fully functioning peasant village built on the grounds of Versailles. She loved strolling the village in simple shepherdess garb pretending to live a simple life milking cows or sheep, which were carefully maintained and cleaned by the servants.
VKZQ TIL “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis was the first song since 1994 to reach No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart without the support of a major record label.