› added 7 years ago

251

TIL early Antarctic explorers used a novel treatment for snow blindness- cocaine.

Read more npr.org

via reddit.com

vPpD7 TIL about pishtacos, an Andean Indigenous legend. People feared Spanish missionaries (pishtacos), believing the missionaries were killing people for fat, thereafter oiling church bells to make them especially sonorous.
E1Kkd TIL The "Mensch of Malden Mills" could have retired when his textile factory burned down. Instead he paid employees for 60 days and rebuilt the factory in the same place. When asked about his decision, he replied: "And what would I do with it? Eat more? Buy another suit? Retire and die?"
rRkR1 TIL Howard Ashman co-wrote songs for Disney Renaissance films The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin while dying of complications from AIDS. Beauty’s dedication reads: “To our friend Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul, we will be forever grateful.”
6E6BJ TIL the term "Boston Tea Party" didn't appear in print until nearly 60 years after the actual event. For most of its early history it was known as the "destruction of the tea."
n769 TIL that, in 1978, a Stanford PhD student murdered his advisor with a sledgehammer after being told that he would never get a doctorate after 19 years in graduate school.