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TIL That the reason for women's buttons being on the left and men's on the right is because women would have servants dress them while men's buttons follow military uniform practice

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awyvy TIL San Francisco had a plague outbreak in the 1900s. Government officials repeatedly denied that it existed to ensure that no quarantine was put into place. When they acknowledged it existed, they blamed it on China. This resulted in the destruction of Chinatown.
RKy7 TIL of “The Walkie-Talkie,” a building in London that unintentionally melted cars and changed weather patterns due to its concave design which focused a beam of light 6 times brighter sunlight and heated the pavement to nearly 250°F at certain spots.
0wj6M TIL of the Ozark Hellbender salamander, aka the Snot Otter, Lasagna Lizard, or Grampus. At 3-5 lbs with undulating skin, it reminded settlers of "horrible tortures of the infernal regions." But now it's endangered (only 590 left), so to raise awareness, Pennsylvania made it their state amphibian
VMQ7Z TIL The window tax was a property tax based on the number of windows in a house. To avoid the tax some houses from the period can be seen to have bricked-up window-spaces . In England and Wales it was introduced in 1696 and was repealed in 1851, France and Scotland also had window taxes.
mxprp TIL that botox is the deadliest substance on earth, a few kilos of it enough to kill every human on the planet. In cosmetics, it is given in quantities a billionth of a gram large. It is also the most expensive substance on earth, costing £100trillion per kilo.