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TIL that a Schandmantel was a torture device fashioned from wood and sometimes metal. Victims were made to wear this device in public where they would be insulted, humiliated and have rotten vegetables thrown at them. The Schandmantel was mostly used as punishment for poachers and prostitutes

x6jW7 TIL in the 1893 case of Nix v. Hedden, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, for purposes of the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, tomatoes are vegetables. The Supreme Court relied on the fact that tomatoes are usually used as vegetables since they're normally served with dinner and not dessert.
PYA6w TIL Scurvy used to be the scourge of the navy, killing sailors on long voyages. Now it's a blight to evolutionary biologists. They just don't know why it exists in humans. It's only in the primates - gorillas, chimps, humans, and a few monkeys - that the body stops producing this necessary vitamin.
R5051 TIL that as of 2023 Canadian government health guidelines now define drinking more than 2 alcoholic beverages per week as "moderate risk" drinking and more than 6 per week as "increasingly high risk" drinking
Eg9wd TIL the 4 or 5 digit code printed on the sticker attached to your produce is universal, so your banana will be labeled with 4011 almost everywhere you buy them. The standards are set by an international coalition of companies.
yQw48 TIL The concept of zeppelin travel was so popular in the early 1900s that many buildings advertised zeppelin docks as marketing ploys, circulating misleading photos. But other than a 3-minute publicity stunt in New York, no zeppelin has ever truly docked to a building & loaded/unloaded passengers.