› added 4 years ago

157

TIL that in 2014, China banned puns, saying that they create "cultural and linguistic chaos"

Read more latimes.com

via reddit.com

gBry TIL in the 1500s, British sailors would receive rations of rum as partial payment. To ensure the rum wasn’t watered down, they would measure the proof by dousing gunpowder with it, & then test to see if the gunpowder would ignite. The gunpowder would only ignite if the rum was >57% alcohol by volume
grX4W TIL Hunter S. Thompson started QAnon’s Adrenochrome Quackery
9YeaD TIL that Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) , the aviation pioneer who, along with his brother Wilbur, invented, built and flew the first motor operated airplane lived long enough to see Chuck Yeager break the speed of sound (October 14, 1947). Imagine that!
JYgO8 TIL France had a "proto-internet" called Minitel, to which half the population had access. It allowed for buying plane tickets, shopping, 24-hr news, message boards & adult chat services. It was used to coordinate a national strike in 1986. Some believe it hindered the internet's adoption in France.
VMROZ TIL: Tom Cruise is obsessed with sending his co-stars cakes, even ones he worked with decades ago. Louis Theroux, documentary maker, even went to his grandmother's 100th Birthday Party to find 100 cupcakes from Tom Cruise, after Tom worked with his cousin.