› added 9 years ago

157

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

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rp11 TIL That popularity of hip hop is greatly attributed to the New York city blackout of 1977 where rioting and mass looting enabled young aspiring Dj’s access to equipment they couldn’t otherwise afford.
p8m6O TIL that Russians call roller coasters "American Mountains" even though roller coaster are called "Russian Mountains" in many languages around the world
ENNV TIL After 20 years of playing chess casually I’ve just learned that when you promote pawn in Chess, you can always take Queen in exchange, eventually ending up with 9 Queens max on field
b68P9 TIL the shrimp industry removes the eyes of female shrimp to increase reproduction, calling it "eyestalk ablation."
JYBmj TIL that 98% of the marine fish found in the aquarium hobby cannot be bred on a commercial scale in captivity; they are instead stunned using cyanide poison to enable capture, a process which not only kills many of the fish caught this way, but also destroys a square yard of the worlds ailing reefs