› added 5 years ago

48

TIL that Washington Irving, who created the first illustration of Santa on his sleigh, was also the creator of the Headless Horseman from Sleepy Hollow.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

gYaL TIL American roulette wheels are different than wheels in other parts of the world. Casinos in the U.S. use a 0 and double 0 to decrease the odds of winning to 1/38, while other countries use just 0, making the odds 1/37 when betting individual numbers
gMWkA TIL that 12,000 bears are farmed for their bile in Asia which is used in traditional Chinese medicine and generates $2bn per year. Farming always involves surgery on the bears to insert a catheter or to cut a hole through the abdomen by which the bile leaks. Bear bile has no medicinal effect.
4Xk75 TIL that J. Paul Getty, with a net worth of 1.2billion in the 50s, scolded his wife for spending money freely on the treatment of their six-year-old son after he went blind from a brain tumour. When his son died six years later, Getty didn't attend the funeral.
E14JP TIL 'Evaporated Cane Juice' commonly found listed on some organic food labels is really just sugar in disguise.
BrP0b TIL Mixed-race relations were a felony in some states in the South, but also in western and plains States until 1967, when the Supreme Court struck down laws against it. As late as 2009 a Louisiana Justice of the Peace refused to perform a mixed race ceremony, was sued and resigned.