› added 9 years ago

206

TIL : In 1985 a pool party was thrown for Lifeguards in celebration of a year without drowning, at that party a man drowned.

6oPZ TIL that owls have serrations on the edge of their flight feathers, allowing an owl’s flight to be practically silent. Some fish-eating owls, for which silence has no evolutionary advantage, lack this adaptation.
wrX8 TIL when the Beatles wrote the song “With a Little Help from My Friends”, the first line ended with ‘What would you think if I sang out of tune? Would You Throw Ripe Tomatoes at Me?’, but Ringo changed it so that fans would not throw tomatoes at him should he perform it live.
xVkJo TIL that the american flag "code" prohibits using the flag "for any advertising purpose" and also states that the flag "should not be embroidered, printed, or otherwise impressed on such articles as cushions, handkerchiefs, napkins, boxes, or anything intended to be discarded after temporary use".
R7WN4 TIL from my Bolivian co-worker that Potosi (the largest city in the new world 1545) had more than 40,000 tons of silver shipped out of the town, making the Spanish Empire one of the richest the world had ever seen. He said it Bolivians claim it was enough silver to build an transatlantic bridge.
VBGo8 TIL: Butt plugs were invented in the 1890s to cure insanity. Dr. Young's Ideal Rectal Dilators came in sets of four varying in diameter from half an inch to 4 inches. Dr. Young admitted that some patients panicked at the sight of the devices.