› added 1 week ago

4

TIL Facing a major banking and public debt crisis in 1340, Florence elected an executive council consisting of a butcher, a used cloth salesman, a dyer, a notary and a member of the Machiavelli family. They saved the state by enacting a radical plan of restructuring and re-funding the public debt

Read more sites.duke.edu

via reddit.com

neJvP TIL that disabled people in the UK can get a universal key which works with disabled toilets around the whole of the UK (around 9,000+ toilets)
VBoKk TIL that the man who played the radiological technician in the movie The Exorcist is also a convicted murderer, and was briefly portrayed on screen in season 2 of Mindhunter.
kneB TIL in 2008, the Chilean 50 peso was misspelled as “CHIIE” instead of “CHILE,” with a second “I” in place of the “L". When the error was brought to light in 2009, Gregorio Iniguez, the director of the Chile Mint, and others were fired from their jobs.
BrLxk Today I learned that being late in Brazil is so part of the culture, if they want to start on time they say “com pontualidade britânica” which means “with British punctuality.”
5Yd8D TIL that horseshoe crab blood, costing $60,000 per gallon, is unique and is integral in FDA testing. This has led to a massive effort by scientists to try to conserve this invaluable resource.