› added 5 years ago

210

TIL that US started a major effort to count arrest-related deaths between 2003-2011 employing a specialized team of statisticians with US Bureau of Justice Statistics. The program had to be terminated due to poor participation from the states and lack of funding.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

ow5Y TIL on the first day of Lent in the village of Brodilovo, Bulgaria, villagers practice ‘Dog Spinning.’ A dog is suspended above water on a rope. The dog is turned repeatedly in a given direction to wind the rope, then released so that it spins rapidly in the opposite direction as the rope unwinds.
8aAmK TIL Sir John Harington (born 1560), known as the inventor of the flush toilet, is related to Kit Harington (born 1986) of Game of Thrones fame. It’s also why some people refer to the toilet as the ‘john’.
DQXPJ TIL that Greek god Dionysus was born from a virgin, around the winter solstice, turned water into wine and supposedly drinking his blood would offer immortality
a80db TIL that unlike knitwears, crochet products can't be mass produced. There are little to no machines that can do it. That means every crochet product you see on the market are handmade..by companies who exploit workers for cheap labor.
x6vOb TIL about the Personal Rescue Enclosure or "rescue ball", a 36 inches (91 cm) sphere intended to protect an astronaut in space in case they had to leave the Space Shuttle; another suited astronaut would then carry the sphere. It was developed in the early days of the Shuttle program but never flown.