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TIL the first words spoken in a film were “wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet” in the 1927 film The Jazz Singer

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

e0YQ5 TIL in 1974, drinkers in a British pub were bemoaning the fact that the UK didn't produce world champions, so they invented a sport that no one else knew about: toe wrestling. In 1976, a Canadian visitor competed and won, so with the point of the sport gone, the "World Championship" was discontinued
5Yvdk TIL: That you're not supposed to shake a can of spray paint which mixes the pigment and solvent, instead use a swirling circular motion to dissolve the pigment in the solvent. You know you're done when you hear the metal ball in the can revolve around the inside without resistance.
kJPoW TIL that trains have sandboxes which dispense sand immediately in front of the drive wheels to give the locomotive traction on steep or slippery rails.
WgjB TIL “Prior to the first nuclear bomb detonation in July of 1945, isotopes such as strontium-90 and cesium-137 simply did not exist in nature.” Pieces of art and bottles of wine created before 1945 can be tested for cesium, if they contain traces of cesium they would almost certainly be fake.
Eg4Kd TIL Ben Ferencz is the last living prosecutor from the Nuremburg Trials and is 102 years old