› added 6 years ago

80

TIL Jack, a baboon, was employed to change rail signals. After initial skepticism, the railway decided to officially employ the baboon once his job competency was verified. He was paid twenty cents a day, and 1/2 a bottle of beer each week. In his nine years of employment, Jack never made a mistake.

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9YpaQ TIL Melanie Martinez had her home destroyed four times by Hurricane: Betsy (1965), Juan (1985), George (1998), and Katrina (2005). The reality TV show "Hideous Homes" gave her home a $20,000 remodeling, only to have it destroyed again by Hurricane Issac in 2012.
b9kd4 TIL that "housewife pillowcases" are named in honour of the Bolton Housewives Co-Operative who, in the 19th century, invented the flap that stops the pillow falling out.
QNEjp TIL about "Bathing Machines" ... Portable Huts that, in the 18th and early 19th-Centuries, were rolled into the ocean to allow bathers to "changes into whatever shapeless sack was deemed suitable at the time" to go swimming.
neom7 TIL that expensive prizes at events-- like winning a car for sinking a full-court shot at a basketball game, winning $1,000,000 for a hole-in-one, etc.-- are usually paid for by insurance companies. "Hole-in-one insurance" is an insurance policy that protects against someone winning a huge prize.
0dJJ5 TIL that during the filming of the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964), the actor Harold Sakata who played Oddjob, badly burned his hand in the electrocution scene. However Sakata managed to last until the director said cut.