› added 4 years ago

88

TIL that in the Middle Ages bestiality was compared to homosexuality not to make homosexuality look bad, but rather to malign bestiality (previously seen as a minor sin akin to masturbation)

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YpdpP TIL that "mayday!" is derived from the French "m'aidez!", or "help me!". It was chosen for air communication by an Englishman in the 1920s.
v1m1j TIL that early film music was heavily influenced by European romantic music of the late 1800s. The first silent film to feature fully orchestrated accompaniment was "The Assassination of the Duke of Guise" (1908) with a score by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns
W70pL TIL that a titanium hammer harnesses 97% of the energy from a hammer swing to the nail, whereas a steel hammer only transfers 70% of the energy.
b9JX4 TIL about the Black War or the British conquest of Tasmania. The Lieutenant-General declared Martial law allowing for the British colonists to kill the aboriginal Tasmanians with impunity. Historians today debate on whether to label the war as a genocide.
E1RQ0 TIL the word Kamikaze means divine wind, a term that was coined for a typhoon that sunk a mongol fleet trying to invade Japan in 1281.