› added 7 years ago

386

TIL The oldest running company is a Japanese hotel that's been running since 705.

Read more slate.com

via reddit.com

66p8 TIL that the personal bodyguards of the Byzantine Emperor were primarily Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons. They comprised the “Varangian Guard” which was also an Elite Unit of the Byzantine Army. The loyalty and honor of these “axe-bearing barbarians” became a trope of Byzantine writers.
b9DkE TIL that in 2014 Zara released striped pajamas with a sheriff badge which looked like a prisoner uniform from Jewish concentration camps. Needless to say, they got a lot of shit for that and pulled them off store shelves.
6Eg8Z TIL Richard Nixon had the Secret Service uniform redesigned to closely resemble that of European palace guards. The "toy soldier" uniforms were universally ridiculed and only used for a few months before being mothballed; after a decade in storage they were sold to an Iowa high school marching band
OdQg TIL the reason dogs walk in circles before going to sleep is because this is how they would create a bed in long grass in the wild
788JL TIL it was theorized through the 19th century that the Arctic Ocean got warmer as it got closer to the North Pole. The "Open Polar Sea" could provide trade routes through an equator-like temperate climate to Asia, Europe, and the Americas. It was disproven by dozens of failed expeditions.