› added 9 years ago

499

TIL that during the Russian famine of the 1920s, Government officials advised starving residents to dig up the dried bones of animals, grind them into flour and bake a “bread substitute [that has] a nutritive value of 25 per cent more than rye bread, in spite of its unpleasant smell and taste”.

Read more alphahistory.com

via reddit.com

AKo4 TIL one reason menus list a very expensive wine or specialty food item is to make everything else on the menu seem more reasonable, causing diners to spend more than they normally would.
DQVLg TIL Only 47 people live on the Pitcairn Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Almost all of the residents are descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, a British ship in 1790.
VM8P8 TIL during the Cold War, there was a plan in which the Americans would drop extra-large condoms labeled 'medium' all over the Soviet army so that they would think that all American men had huge penises and they would feel inferior and quit. However it was never executed
epjO5 TIL male camels have a dulaa - a sack-like extension of the soft palate. It's pushed outside the mouth with saliva and is used to produce a low gurgling mating call. The size of the dulaa indicates a male's virility to a female
Ajmo TIL of Tan, a patient in a French hospital who was cognizant and alert, but had paralysis in his right arm. He could only say the word, “tan”. When the man eventually died, Paul Broca examined his brain finding a lesion in the frontal lobe, a spot we now call Broca’s Area.