› added 4 years ago

65

TIL that by the end of the Napoleonic Wars, France was conscripting men shorter than five feet (1.5 m) tall.

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kJa7W TIL of anchorites, medieval Christian ascetics who were walled into a cell ("anchorhold") attached to a church for their entire adult lives. Through small windows, they received sustenance, disposed of waste, and provided spiritual guidance to the public.
4kpw6 TIL that the USA started a project 1938 that hired 450 unemployed clerks to write 28 volumes of higher mathematical functions.
DOvP TIL Human kidneys can only make urine that is less salty than salt water. Therefore, to get rid of all the excess salt taken in by drinking seawater, you have to urinate more water than you drank. Eventually, you die of dehydration even as you become thirstier.
LQdA9 TIL of "menu anxiety" which is defined as distress caused when ordering a meal at a restaurant. A survey showed that over 30% of Americans experience it. Of those who do, some try to avoid it by obsessively reviewing the menu online before showing up to the restaurant.
BLLy TIL that the first album release from Priority Records was by ‘The California Raisins’ a fictional rhythm and blues group made up of anthropomorphized raisins singing hit songs like 'I Heard It Through The Grape Vine’ in order to sell more raisins. The second was Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A.