› added 11 years ago

85

TIL that punchcards were used to ‘program’ looms to weave elaborate textiles in 1725.

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Z6mR TIL that the Japanese imperial succession law barring women from the throne is only about 140 years old, and not ancient tradition. The rule was changed when Japan was modernizing to match Prussia’s succession rules, as Japan looked up to the rising European superpower.
x6O0 TIL after Beethoven heard Mauro Giuliani play the guitar, he commented that the instrument was “a miniature orchestra in itself”.
9w8yp TIL: San Fransisco has very few cemeteries. But the city was once full of cemeteries. As San Francisco's population rapidly grew, "people turned against the cemeteries". Eventually, most of the cemeteries were dug up and transferred out of the city.
R5MY9 TIL that one of the most quoted lines from Star Trek: The Original Series is “Beam me up, Scotty." It’s been used in merchandise, commercials and other media influenced by the show. Ironically, this exact quote has never actually been said in any Star Trek episode or movie.
mxGYo TIL in 1976, Barry Kidston, a 23-year-old chemistry graduate student in Maryland, US, synthesized MPPP with MPTP as a major impurity, and self-injected the result. Within three days he began exhibiting symptoms of Parkinson's disease