› added 6 years ago

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TIL that bleachers are so named because, early on, the generally uncovered wooden boards were "bleached by the sun.”

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Lk0pv TIL that the literary works of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov were all introduced to the English-language world by one woman, who didn't start learning Russian until she was 29, and learned via a dictionary and grammar book. She ultimately translated over 70 volumes.
YZxv TIL There Was a Mysterious 60,000 Ton Stone Structure Discovered Beneath the Sea Near Isreal
x69g0 TIL that Radithor was a "medicine" sold in the 1920s that consisted of water with a bit of dissolved radium. One user, Eben Byers, drank so much of it that most of his jaw literally fell off.
E1V4X TIL that lie detectors are a complete hoax, they don't work at all, but the police still use them. The police are aware that they don't work, but use them to get the defendants to plead guilty.
8e8Z8 TIL that the word "fascinate" derives from the ancient Roman practice of using a representation of the divine penis (a fascinare) to perform magic.