› added 10 years ago

66

TIL, while Samuel Morse was in New York, he received a letter that warned of his wife’s illness. Morse left for home but arrived to find his wife already buried. Heartbroken that for days he was unaware of his wife’s illness and death lead him to research and patent the telegraph 22 years later.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

yVldV TIL that Cher has had a single reach Number 1 on a Billboard chart in each of the last SEVEN decades.
6K8w TIL Cocaine use can be detected through chemicals left in your fingerprints.
yQvBv TIL: Melody Roads (invented in Japan) are highways that play songs. Grooves on the road surface cause a vibration and audible rumbling to be transmitted through the wheels and into the car in the form of a musical tune.
N7XQE TIL Johnny Carson once joked on The Tonight Show about a nonexistent toilet paper shortage which led to eventual panic buying leaving store shelves empty causing a real shortage that lasted weeks
OG86e TIL Female giant pandas would spontaneously terminate their pregnancy when they are inseminated by a panda of the opposite sex they do not like