› added 5 years ago

71

TIL one of the few reasons why the film industry is based in California because filmmakers wanted to get away from Thomas Edison, who owned nearly all film-making patents based in New Jersey. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covered Los Angeles County, was known not to enforce patent claims.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

4KmR TIL that a man lost about 50%-75% of his brain to hydrocephalus (water on the brian) but still led a normal life. They believe the fluid filled so slowly over his life that the brain remapped itself to function despite the loss of mass.
JOYB TIL There is an episode that consists entirely of the Hypnotoad. It’s 22 minutes long and ends with a voiceover saying “the audience will wake up remembering nothing and feeling refreshed.”
1Wd7 TIL that US interrogators tortured an Afghan detainee to death by hanging him by his arms for 4 days and beating his legs so badly they needed amputation. They did this despite most interrogators believing him to be “an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time”
b95aZ TIL that the first person convicted of speeding was going 8 mph (13 km/h). In 1896 Walter Arnold drove his horse-less carriage through the village of Paddock Wood, Kent, at more than four times the speed limit.
v1m44 TIL of John Frederick Parker, the bodyguard assigned to Abraham Lincoln on the night of his assassination, not only was he 3 hours late, but he left his post to get a drink at a saloon next door. It was during this that Booth entered the box seats where Lincoln was sitting and shot the president.