› added 11 years ago

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TIL Fedoras originated as a popular fashion among women’s-rights activists.

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AD0Zd TIL approximately 230 children were born around 1980-1999 by collecting sperm from ‘genius donors’ (like Nobel prize winners) in a eugenetic attempt to breed entire generations of geniuses.
rNNRM TIL of Commander James H. Ward, the first US Naval officer to be killed in the American Civil War. A destroyer named after him fired the first American shots of the Pacific Theater in WW2, sinking a Japanese submarine. Actor Andy Devine is his great-grandson.
MegKW TIL of surgeon Robert Liston, who in the era of before anaesthetics, could amputate a limb in under 30 seconds and was known, in order to free both hands, to hold the bloody knife in his teeth.
9w59G TIL that there is a "witch window" also known as a "Vermont window," found almost exclusively in Vermont. These slanted windows are installed at a 45-degree angle in the gable-end wall of a house and are designed to prevent witches from flying into the home on their brooms.
we0M TIL that Ron Perlman put on the make-up for Hellboy (a 4 hour process) just to fulfill a child’s Make-A-Wish request. He then spent the whole day with the child.