› added 5 years ago

192

TIL Frederick the Great and Voltaire once exchanged rebuses.

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1aDrV TIL Cruentation, the understanding that dead bodies would bleed in the presence of their murderer, was a common belief in the Middle Ages.
VBwYZ Today I learned Tabula rasa (blank slate) is the theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception, which is in direct contrast to Innatism which is the idea that the mind is born with ideas, knowledge, and beliefs.
OoXmX TIL that not only can eyeballs be rugby-ball shaped (astigmatism) instead of basket-ball shaped, but one in 2000 people have a cornea shaped like the top of The Gherkin, rather than the O2 Arena. This is called Keratoconus and causes blurred vision, but not blindness.
rNwe1 TIL Richard Nixon is the only President to forgo his life-long secret service protection in order to save the taxpayers money.
9Yder TIL the 2004 film "50 First Dates" was supposed to be set in Seattle, but Adam Sandler himself switched the story to Hawaii. "You don't see many movies [set] there....And it is such a spectacularly beautiful place for a romantic comedy."