› added 10 years ago

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TIL when the Vanessa Williams Miss America scandal was breaking, Hugh Hefner was offered the nude photos. He turned them down saying “There was never any question of our interest. But they clearly weren’t authorized and because they would cause considerable embarrassment, we decided not to publish.”

d8wJB TIL about psychosocial dwarfism, a condition where a child can stop growing due to an extremely stressful environment. It can cause the body to completely stop growing but is generally temporary; regular growth will resume when the source of stress is removed.
oAoK TIL that in the Victorian era, “ornamental hermits” were old men who lived in hobbit-like cottages in the gardens of wealthy people. These hermits were encouraged to dress like druids, and they would make scheduled appearances in front of their employee’s guests
x6O7o TIL of Sarah Baartman, the "Hottentot Venus", an African woman from the Khoikhoi tribe who was brought to Regency-era London to showcase her large buttocks. She was depicted in cartoons comparing behinds with Whig politician William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, who was nicknamed "broad bottom".
GADKj TIL in 1951, Dr. W Grey Walter built a "tortoise" robot that can detect and move around obstacles and "see" by going towards or away from bright light, and return to its charging station when the battery charge is low.
a81LJ TIL although forcing captives to walk the plank has been a motif of pirates in popular culture since the 19th century, there are no documented instances of it taking place during the classical "Golden Age of Piracy" (which ended by 1730). The few instances that were recorded occurred well after that