› added 5 months ago

19

TIL that the Ancient Romans would mix water and wine vinegar to make a drink called posca. The drink back then was associated with the lower class, soldiers, and slaves.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

AN16x TIL that saying “I have a thing at 5” in reference to a meeting is actually the original usage of the word ‘thing’; the definition as a generic object came later. This is why the Icelandic national assembly is called the Althing.
W5PX TIL that when the USS West Virgina was finally raised after being sunk during the bombing of Pearl Harbor, deceased men were found in an airtight storeroom. On the calendar, 16 days were crossed off in red pencil.
9wR0m TIL nail polish dates back over 5,000 years, with ancient Chinese royals using beeswax, egg whites, and dyes to color their nails around 3000 BCE, long before modern liquid lacquer was invented.
LkPm0 TIL that in the 1940s, US funded doctors went to Guatemala to test STD treatments by deliberately infecting 1,308 locals between the ages of 10 and 72 with gonorrhea, syphilis, and chancroid, all without their informed consent. The US doctors gave only 52% of subjects any treatment. 83 died.
5YaZ8 TIL between 1990 and 1998 the population of water voles in the UK dropped from 2.2 million to just 354k or 750k, depending on the source.