› added 11 years ago

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TIL that around 1778, fashionable Parisian women rarely went out in potentially stormy weather without lightning rods attached to their hats–an artist sketched this hat-lightening-rod contraption (looks like a long drooping chain hanging off the hat, rather than an upright antenna).

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via reddit.com

P19xE TIL about the Dutch Reach method, a preferred action for exiting London cabs safely because of the actions it sets off: reach, swivel, look back, open slowly, and then exit facing traffic.
7XX TIL that there is a statue of George Washington, depicted as Zeus
7rRBx TIL Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall) battled cancer while filming the last Harry Potter movie because she didn’t want to disappoint fans
7vLO TIL That in 2012, the mock anthem of Kazakhstan, from “Borat” was mistakenly played at the Amir of Kuwait International Shooting Grand Prix, instead of the actual one.
GYyPG TIL that During the 1990s, Raul Cano, a microbiologist at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, revived yeast trapped in amber for 25 million years. Cano went on to found a brewery and crafted an "amber ale" with a 45-million-year-old variant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.