› added 12 years ago

104

TIL that the Germanic peoples always drank wine while holding councils, as they believed nobody could lie effectively when drunk.

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oRkAo TIL that Ramon Artagaveytia survived the fire and sinking of the ship "America" in 1871. This incident left him emotionally scarred. 41 years later, he visited the US and boarded “The Titanic”. He didn't survive.
wP8P TIL there’s a city in Georgia with a golf cart path infrastructure over the whole town, where the large majority of the population own golf carts and the kids grow up driving them instead of cars.
d8XRd TIL in 1941, the world's largest seed bank (created by botanist Nikolai Vavilov) was housed in Leningrad. As the Germans surrounded the city causing massive starvation, Vavilov's scientists refused to eat from the collection, slowly dying of hunger as they maintained 16 rooms of edible plants.
DoNg TIL that a dog in America was sent a subpoena to appear in court as a murder witness but was denied as dogs were not allowed in the courthouse.
WkGM9 TIL Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin through his hobby of microbial art. Leaving a Petri dish painting of bacteria unattended for two weeks it was being killed by Penicillium fungus. Thus the antibiotic properties were studied leading to Penicillin.