› added 10 months ago

37

TIL about the Cagots, a group persecuted in France and Spain for nearly 1,000 years. Despite having no distinct language, race, religion, culture or physical traits than people around them, they faced social segregation and prejudice. Their exclusion is one of history's lesser known injustices.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

pYPyb TIL David Bowie used to carry a Greek newspaper while traveling around New York to give the impression that he was a Greek man resembling David Bowie, hoping that people would leave him alone.
7r4bX TIL A Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming took an August vacation from his work in the lab investigating staph. Upon his return on Sept. 3, 1928, the scientist found a strange fungus on a culture he had left in his lab—a fungus that had killed off all surrounding bacteria in the culture.
eN9D TIL: One night in 1998, activists from the Animal Liberation Front crept onto a farm in the New Forest, England. Their goal was to save a group of 6,500 minks. No sooner were they freed than the minks went on a rampage. Guinea pigs, cats, chickens, and water voles all fell victim to the mink hordes.
XAvQ TIL that mopeds and scooters emit 10-30 times the amount of hydrocarbons per km that cars do
OoVA7 TIL The average American loses his or her virginity by age 17. Virgins make up 12.3 percent of females and 14.3 percent of males aged 20 to 24. That number drops below 5 percent for both male and female virgins aged 25 to 29 and goes as low as 0.3 percent for virgins aged 40 to 44.