› added 7 years ago

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TIL fed up by people frequently urinating against houses, a community in Hamburg's red light district started painting walls with water repellent paint so if someone urinate against the wall, their pee would splash off the surface to their shoes.

Read more amp.theguardian.com

via reddit.com

MebNA TIL the rock band Huey Lewis and the News almost called themselves the American Express, but was told by their record label the credit card company of the same name wouldn't appreciate it - so they settled on a name reflecting Lewis' love of TV news
E1gpX TIL that France, Britain, and Ireland are home to a combined 15 of the 20 oldest known buildings in the world. The oldest, Barnenez in France, dates to 4800 BC. Over 2,000 years older than the oldest pyramid in Egypt.
8e0MG TIL that in 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre Museum by Vincenzo Peruggia, and it took two years to get it back. The museum initially had no idea it was missing, assuming it was out for photography.
wL8n6 TIL that 70% alcohol is better at disinfecting surfaces than 91% alcohol. In one experiment, a 50% alcohol solution killed Staphylococcus Aureus in less than 10 seconds, but a 90% solution failed to kill it even after two hours of contact time.
aw9ry TIL that the US once fed information to the USSR about an extremely deadly nerve gas called "GJ" that was nearly impossible to create. Although initially intended to waste Soviet resources on a wild goose chase, the project to replicate "GJ" ended up producing the now-infamous Novichok agents.