› added 11 years ago

85

TIL: The first item sold on ebay was a broken laser pointer, and when asked in an email by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar if he was aware that the laser pointer was broken, the buyer replied that “I’m a collector of broken laser pointers.”

Read more royal.pingdom.com

via reddit.com

6Emg8 TIL the company that developed the first all-wheel drive vehicles was named "Four Wheel Drive", and after their invention the company's name "Four Wheel Drive" became synonymous with all-wheel drive vehicles from any manufacturer.
Oj0L TIL Google paid a fine of $22.5 million for illegal data collection, $500 million for knowingly allowing fraudulent pharmacies to advertise on their site, and were accused of profiting from women sex trafficking by 38 different anti-trafficking organizations.
p8DD4 TIL of the so-called 'Sewing Circle'; an underground group of lesbian and bisexual Hollywood actresses alleged to have included Marlene Dietrich, Lili Damita, Dolores del Rio, Claudette Colbert and many others. The group would meet at each other's homes for 'lunch, conversation and possibilities'.
b9Mo9 TIL erotic artist Toshio Maeda in the 80s started to feature tentacles in his intercourse scenes to avoid being censored by the Japanese government. His "a tentacle is not a penis" argument worked and started the trend of Japanese anime, manga, and video games featuring tentacles.
DkND TIL that Charles Darwin sat on his theories about evolution for nearly 20 years, until Alfred Wallace discussed his own theories of evolution with mutual friends who pressed Darwin to publish so as to establish his priority in the concept