› added 10 years ago

57

TIL that Versailles’s over 2000 fountains consumed more water per day than the entire city of Paris. To solve the water shortage, the fountaineers would signal each other upon the king’s approach to turn on the fountain. Once the king passed the fountain, it would be turned off again.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

O9n4 TIL there is an animal that looks like a gremlin with a “long, bony, witch-like middle finger” called an Aye Aye. These gentle, harmless animals are killed due to local superstition that aye-ayes are harbingers of death, and if an aye-aye points its middle finger at you, it’s a death sentence.
X05mD TIL about the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 - don't move those nests!
W79ed TIL In 1996, Canada became the first country in the world to privatize its air navigation services.
N75PE TIL: The average person can see around 1 million colors but tetrachromats, people with a fourth cone, can perceive around 100 million
VM6ED TIL: The US Military Secretly Sprayed Radioactive Materials On Blacks In St. Louis