› added 10 years ago

50

TIL that in ancient Rome, after a person pooped, a communal sponge was used to wipe. The sponge was then rinsed in a bucket of salt water before being used by the next person.

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ANXjd TIL: about Exercise Tiger, a large scale practice run months before for the D-Day invasion. Friendly fire from communication errors and attacks from Nazi E-Boats resulted in the deaths of 749 men. Eisenhower ordered that all servicemen be sworn to secrecy and was publicly unknown until the 1980s
pYYEN TIL that any object moving through water, no matter the speed or shape, creates a "Kelvin Wake" that is angled at precisely 19.47 degrees with respect to the direction of motion.
5YdpP TIL William Steig was 82 when he created Shrek in 1990, and he eventually became the first sole-creator of an animated movie franchise that made $1 billion after only one sequel.
xXK7 TIL on December 1, 1948, a dead man bearing no identification was found on an Australian beach. Well dressed in clothes with deliberately torn-out labels, in excellent physical condition, and having left behind a rare book containing a bizarre code, the man remains unidentified to this day.
wLMb7 TIL, India is first country in the world to launch more than 100 satellites at one go.