› added 6 years ago

296

TIL of the "poison squad": a group of young government employees in the early 1900s who, in order to test the safety of common food additives of the time, purposely ate ingredients including formaldehyde (embalming fluid) and borax (laundry detergent). Their work led to food labeling requirements.

Read more atlasobscura.com

via reddit.com

MwMK TIL that in 1989, a man bought a an old painting from a flea market for $4 because he liked the frame. Hidden behind it was an original printing of the Declaration of Independence which went on to sell at auction for $2.42 million.
GYvw7 TIL during Poland's "Deluge," a Swedish Invasion that virtually destroyed the country, many whole libraries (including the Royal Library) were stolen, put on boats, and shipped to Sweden. The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth became an "intellectual desert" and some of these books remain in Sweden.
pErb TIL that in 1963 Harry Truman wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post criticizing the CIA, which he created, for becoming increasingly sinister and casting a shadow over the image the US was trying to project to the world.
8a5NG TIL that meth is called crank because the motorcycle gangs that trafficked it use to hide it in the crank case of their motorcycles.
rRGM4 TIL of Dennis H. Klatt, a computer scientist who programmed Stephen Hawking's voice box. He tirelessly worked on the code while undergoing treatment for cancer, which eventually took his own voice, and his life. Hawking never changed his voice program, saying, "My friend Dennis' voice is my voice"