› added 6 years ago

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TIL that the first vending machine was invented 2000 years ago in Roman Egypt and sold Holy Water. When the coin was deposited, it fell upon a pan attached to a lever which let some water flow out. A counterweight snapped the lever up and turned off the valve once the coin was tilted off the pan.

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R7pB4 TIL about “mad honey,” a honey made by bees gathering pollen from rhododendrons. “To put it mildly, just one spoonful can get you as effed up as a football bat” -
yQl8e TIL Generation labels are made up by the marketing industry. Ad agencies wanted another catch-all term for the new members of their target age group. For example, Generation Y was too hard to brand, it didn’t have the spark of “Millennials”. These labels are not based from science.
Y76QZ TIL art used to be a medal competition at the Olympics between 1918 to 1948 and only stopped because most of the contestants were professionals and not the required amateurs.
0dvEj TIL following the destruction of the Iberian city of Illiturgis by Publius Cornelius Scipio in 206 BC, the people from the neighbouring city of Astapa–knowing they faced a similar fate, decided to burn the city with all of its treasures and then kill themselves.
D1pRg TIL of BASE jumper Frank Gambalie, who drowned while fleeing park rangers after an illegal base jump from El Capitan. Months later, fellow BASE jumper Jan Davis attempted a jump to protest the ban and prove it was safe, when she fell to her death