› added 3 months ago

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TIL that book selling dates back to ancient Greece and Rome—Athens had booksellers by 300 BC, and by the 1st century CE, Roman bookshops (tabernae librarii) were present near the Forum, in areas like the Argiletum and Vicus Sandalarius. A list of books for sale was posted on the door or side posts.

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b9D59 TIL Abdol Hossein Sardari is credited with saving thousands of Jews in Europe, and given the title "Schindler of Iran"
e0gmL TIL a cat named Oscar survived the sinking of three ships during WW2
DjPJ TIL Freddie Mercury was an Indian Parsi with the birth name Farrokh Bulsara
m1NAE TIL North Korea is obsessed with Choco Pies from S Korea. There's a black market for them, and factories once used them to pay worker bonuses. In 2014, S Korean activists sent 10K pies to NK with helium balloons. After an injured NK defector crossed the DMZ in 2017, he was given a lifetime supply.
m51x TIL that Edison invented the electric chair to show that AC was more dangerous than DC so as to undermine Nicola Tesla and his financial backer Westinghouse at a crucial moment in the early days of the electricity wars. It backfired.