› added 10 years ago

188

TIL that the painting ‘American Gothic’ is not a farmer and his wife but a farmer and his “spinster daughter,” meaning she is past the age of matrimonial eligibility.

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NZkJ TIL Rin-Tin-Tin, the canine movie star of the 1920s, was so popular that he supposedly got the most votes for Best Actor at the first ever Academy Awards. The Academy chose a human instead of Rin-Tin-Tin because they wanted the show to be taken seriously.
R7yP6 TIL Han Zhijun has been described as "China's most mysterious first lady". Han never accompanied Chairman Hua on business trips abroad and the two rarely appeared in public together. Reportedly, Han continued to cycle to and from work
e0ZXJ TIL a Nigerian ship's cook, Harrison Odjegba Okene, survived for 60 hours in a sunken tugboat, Jascon-4, that capsized on 26 May 2013 in heavy seas while it was stabilising an oil tanker at a Chevron platform in the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean, about 32 km (20 mi) off the Nigerian coast
0yBy TIL That Napoleon commissioned the development of a system that would allow his troops to communicate at night in the front lines, which was eventually taught to and perfected by 12 year old student Louis Braille.
yQn9p TIL that Teargas, both pepper-spray and CS gas, are listed as chemical weapons and their use by the military is considered a war crime.