› added 1 year ago

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TIL about the Théâtrophone, a 19th-20th century "theatre phone" system that let subscribers listen to live opera and theatre performances over telephone lines.

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via reddit.com

GYe5G TIL in 2009, police in San Jose, California engaged in a 17-hour standoff with an empty house.
VBVQD TIL that Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system
16pY8 TIL you can harvest pearls without killing the oyster! They are taken out of the water and opened very slightly so that the muscle keeping them closed is not injured. Special tools are used to gently remove the pearl and then the oyster goes back into the water!
4XRxo TIL in 2011 at a rural Western NY high school, 14 students came down with an illness: verbal outbursts, tics, seizures, and speech problems. Fears about the cause of the outbreak drew national media attention. One girl had Tourette syndrome. The rest had mass psychogenic illness: mass hysteria.
vZX4 TIL Lil Wayne had his life saved by an off duty police officer who drove him to the hospital after the rapper accidentally shot himself as a child.