› added 10 hours ago

TIL that before electricity, wealthy British in colonial India cooled themselves with ceiling fans called punkahs - large cloth-and-cane panels pulled by servants who kept them swinging. Some punkah-wallahs were chosen for being deaf, so they couldn’t overhear private conversations.

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OogWX TIL that Ancient Rome had no concept of a limited-liability corporation, so entrepreneurs got around it by appointing a slave as the CEO. A master was not legally liable for a slave's debts, so this allowed the owner to control the company while avoiding personal liability in case of bankruptcy.
mkrp TIL that the world’s largest tunnel digging machine, Bertha, is stuck under Seattle
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