› added 1 year ago

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TIL that the use of the term "ship" or "shipping" to refer to a fandom wanting two or more people, either real or fictional, to be in a romantic relationship originated from online fans of the X-Files in the 90s who believed that Fox Mulder and Dana Scully should get together

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JYjMv TIL that rubber bullets were invented by the British Ministry of Defence for use against rioters in the Troubles in Northern Ireland, first used there in 1970
OoQya TIL That 70's Show is often cited as having the first gay kiss to air on North American prime time television. The 1998 episode Eric's Buddy, featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, aired eighteen months before Dawson's Creek aired the first gay kiss in a romantic context.
Qmop TIL a Palestinian judge banned divorce during Ramadan because “people make hasty decisions when they are hungry”
ADpb4 TIL That for almost 300 years, the office of the pope was almost certainly a death sentence. 28 of the first 31 consecutive popes were violently murdered.
PYw8G TIL in the 1950s the US Navy sprayed San Francisco with a bacteria known to leave 'pink slime' residue in damp environments like bathrooms and now known to cause UTIs and pneumonia, in order to test the impact of an offshore biological weapons attack on a coastal city