› added 6 years ago

98

TIL that the sovereign Kingdom of Hawai'i was never annexed by the US by treaty; it was overthrown by the US military in 1893, and, after some shifting of power structure, has subsequently been illegally militarily occupied as a US territory, and eventually as a state after a 1959 referendum vote.

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wLwAW TIL that ‘grape bricks’ (concentrated grape juice) were sold during Prohibition, which came with a warning not to mix the contents of the brick, yeast, water, and sugar in a pot and then seal such pot for seven days, or else “an illegal alcoholic beverage will result”
OG0wX TIL there was a false belief in Europe starting in the 13th Century that Jewish males experience periodic bleeding through nosebleeds, urination or hemorrhoids bleeding similarly to women having their periods.
5YMDQ TIL An instrumental version of the song "Sukiyaki", a story of a man who looks up and whistles while he is walking so that his tears will not fall, was played by NASA over the radio for the Gemini VII astronauts as mood music, thereby becoming one of the first pieces of music sent to humans in space
6EKyW TIL about Ron Hunt, a construction worker, who in 2003 slipped off of his ladder and fell face fist onto a 18 inch long drill bit. It penetrated through his eye and by all means it should've killed him. Yet miraculously it pushed the brain tissue aside, leaving him (aside from his eye) unharmed.
ANQ8n TIL: After being synthesized by Heinrich Dreser of The Bayer company in 1895, heroin was originally used as a treatment for morphine addiction and The Bayer company marketed it by sending out free samples of it to the public