› added 11 years ago

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TIL the Amphitheatre of Pompeji, the first one the Romans built out of stone in the 1st cent. BCE, still offers valuable and relevant lessons to crowd control specialists in the creation of modern venues

7rPmX TIL Elton John answered an ad for a talent search. After failing the audition he told the person behind the desk that he can't write lyrics. He was handed an envelope with lyrics by another person who answered the ad and failed the audition Bernie Taupin, who then wrote the majority of Elton's songs
Qpwp TIL Spices like turmeric, paprika and ginger are often cut with fillers, from less expensive spices to flours, corn starch and even sawdust. Toxic or potentially carcinogenic dyes are added to hide aging of a product or the presence of fillers, as in metanil yellow color and lead chromate
1aGAr TIL NYC's Roosevelt Island doesn't have a need for garbage trucks and weekly trash pick up. Instead there is an automated vacuum collection. Put your garbage into a porthole and it's transported via underground high speed pneumatic tubes to a centralized location where it's finally picked up.
9lo6 TIL The inventors of bubble wrap, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, were originally trying to make 3D wallpaper.
xVXlg TIL that before the British royal family was the Royal House of Windsor, they were the Royal House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. They changed the name to sound more British during WWI after a German air raid killed a class of schoolchildren in London, whipping up extreme anti-German sentiment in the UK.