› added 2 years ago

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TIL of Terrible Ted, a bear that fought in commercially promoted wrestling matches against humans from the 50s through the 70s.

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7Lpr TIL A whip makes its cracking noise because the whip’s tip breaks the sound barrier and what you hear is actually a small sonic boom.
LQrJV TIL that there is a Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge, named for its benefactor, antiquarian John Disney.
po4A TIL that Microsoft Encarta (original codename “Gandalf”) began as a pet project for Bill Gates around 1985 after being rejected by Encyclopaedia Britannica as a partner in making material available to PC users as a CD-ROM. Encarta’s eventual demise in 2009 was widely attributed to Wikipedia
GYA8J TIL that during the Victorian Era, “female hysteria” was a catchall term for many feelings of malaise, including when a woman was horny. Doctors “treated” the ailment by masturbating the women until they reached “hysterical paroxysm”, or as we call it today, an orgasm. [NSFW]
XW98 TIL 1-3% of people are equipped with a mutated gene called hDEC2 which allows their body to get the rest it requires from just a few hours of sleep.