› added 8 years ago

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TIL in ancient Rome urine was a taxed commodity due to its value as a cleaning product.

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Zp9ba TIL: As of March 2023, Frontier is the world's fastest supercomputer.
D1gNg TIL that when told that Captain Picard drank a lot of tea, Patrick Stewart suggested the character should drink lapsang souchong (a variety favored by Winston Churchill). The producers were afraid that audience members wouldn’t know what it was, so they made him change it to Earl Grey.
8e1VZ TIL that in 1985 an Army supply clerk at Fort Carson, Colorado accidentally ordered a $28,000 anchor instead of a $6 lamp due to mistyping the requisition number. Nobody in the supply chain asked why a mechanized unit needed a 10 ton anchor until it arrived.
nerOd TIL in the Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella, the stepsisters cut off their toes and part of their heel to fit into the slipper. Their plans are foiled when the Prince notices the shoe filling up with blood.
Y5aP TIL: In 1849, a woman named Mrs. Charlotte M. Winslow concocted a pain reliever for teething children called Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, which contained morphine sulphate, sodium carbonate, spirits foeniculiand, and aqua ammonia. Shockingly, the syrup remained in the market until 1930.