› added 3 years ago

73

TIL in Ancient Rome sometimes the seller of a female slave attached a ne serva clause to the ownership papers to prevent her from being prostituted. The ne serva clause meant that if the new owner or any owner afterwards used the slave as a prostitute she would be free.

dDRWj TIL until the mid-1990s the Italian-American mafia controlled trash collection in New York City, fixing prices by extorting or murdering competitors or requiring them to join the price-fixing cartel. After an undercover operation convicted the leaders, trash collection costs dropped by $600 million.
oB958 TIL that the modern shipping container's invention is owed to Malcom McLean, a former truck driver who saw a need to ship goods in a more innovative way. By taking a truck trailer's box and inventing a system revolved around getting it from port-to-port, the shipping container was born.
oRy7W TIL actress Gillian Anderson (Agent Scully from the X-Files) grew up in London, and after the X-Files concluded she moved back to London 22 years ago. She doesn't consider herself to be either Biritish or American.
dk4Z TIL while almost all weight lifting records are from modern day athletes, the current record for a one-handed dead lift was set by Hermann Görner in 1920. He lifted 330 kg (727.5 lb).
9wBwB TIL in 2015, a woman's parachute failed to deploy while skydiving, surviving with life-threatening injuries. Days before, she survived a mysterious gas leak at her house. Both were later found to be intentional murder plots by her husband.