› added 4 years ago

55

TIL American mechanic Walter Hunt is regarded as the inventor of the safety pin that bears resemblance to those used today. The safety pin included a clasp that covered the point and kept it from opening, and a circular twist at the bend to act as a spring and hold it in place.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

KyVJ TIL a biology professor extracted yeast from a 45 million year old insect trapped in amber and brewed beer from it.
N7oAE TIL in the 60's Capel Celyn, Wales was flooded to provide drinking water to Liverpool forcing the inhabitants to leave. After the flooding the English MPs had a tea party on location which was quickly destroyed by the furious villagers. This launched a Nationalist movement which continues to grow.
xBP0 TIL in Iceland, people protested construction of a highway in fear of disturbing local elf habitat.
rRM8M TIL that there is a bird called bittern that defends itself by mimicking a stick!
WkXmN TIL Häagen-Dazs was created in the 1960s by an American couple living in the Bronx. They used a Danish-sounding name because it conveyed an "aura of the old-world traditions and craftsmanship" and added an umlaut even though that punctuation doesn't exist in the Danish language to make it stand out.