› added 3 years ago

96

TIL some American colonists thought tomatoes were poisonous. To prove their safety to other NJ locals, Robert Gibbon Johnson brought a basketful to the town square and dramatically ate them in front of an audience of ~2000. At least one person fainted as the crowd cheered him on.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

mxdjo TIL the city of Portland, OR once drained a 38 million gallon reservoir because a man peed in it.
dJJZ TIL that in 1856, an Indian mathematician was hired to calculate the height of Mount Everest and found it to be exactly 29,000 ft. Authorities released the height as 29,002 ft to avoid speculation that they had just given a rounded estimate as it would have been hard to believe the exact figure.
JYarl TIL that Howard Hughes' aides shipped 350 gallons of his favorite ice cream from LA : Baskin-Robbins' banana nut.A few days after the order arrived, Hughes said he was tired of banana nut and wanted only French vanilla.Desert Inn ended up distributing free banana nut to casino customers for a year.
5V9k8 TIL 90% of American girls ow/have owned at least one Barbie.
yELM TIL during the second season of King of the Hill, it had more viewership than its lead-in The Simpsons