› added 9 years ago

330

TIL In 1914 the Coca-Cola Company was flooded with look-alike competitors. They requested design proposals for their product: a “bottle so distinct that you would recognize if by feel in the dark or lying broken on the ground.” It became a classic example of design patents for law students.

Read more coca-colacompany.com

via ift.tt

wodaE TIL In 1969, Nixon appointed a Space Task Group which presented recommendations including building an Earth-orbiting space station, a lunar-orbiting space station, a base on the lunar surface, and a human expedition to Mars. They were too expensive, so Nixon directed NASA to build the Space Shuttle
Ay8n TIL it is “required” by the FDIC for financial institution employees to take two weeks consecutive vacation every year to help uncover cases of fraud. The logic being that someone else must do your work for 2 weeks and said employee will be unable to cover up their work for that length of time.
pBVG TIL that as a Jew, Jesus would have had short hair, but artists eventually gave him long hair to make him seem more god-like, in the image of the Roman gods Jupiter and Neptune
Oo0xa TIL that, in the original Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother is in fact a cynical device to show that while you may have intelligence, grace and charm, you will never succeed without the right connections
9YdXr TIL of Syndrome K: a fake disease that Italian doctors made up to save Jews who had fled to their hospital seeking protection from the Nazis. Syndrome K "patients" were quarantined and the Nazis were told that it was a deadly, disfiguring, and highly contagious illness. They saved at least 20 lives.