› added 8 years ago

331

TIL that until 2015 a French law prohibited bakers in Paris from taking vacations at the same time, to avoid a bread shortage like the one that helped cause the French Revolution. Bakers met to decide who would be open in July and who would be open in August.

Read more npr.org

via reddit.com

b6o8a TIL It took 20,000 hours of underwater repairs but the United States managed to refloat a majority of the battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor. Recovered ships including the USS West Virginia, USS California, USS Tennessee, USS Maryland, and USS Pennsylvania all fought in the Philippines.
95nr TIL The Smithsonian reports that more than likely “Tisquantum” (meaning divine rage) was not the famous Native American’s birth name, but identifying himself as so was like sticking his hand out to the Pilgrims and saying “Hello, I’m the Wrath of God.”
VBQL0 TIL Serge Voronoff was a surgeon who gained fame for his practice of xenotransplantation of monkey testicle tissues onto the testicles of men as anti-aging therapy while working in France in the 1920s and 1930s.
yVDVe TIL about Preserved Fish, a prominent NYC shipping merchant who sailed to the Pacific in his youth aboard a whaling vessel, became Captain Preserved Fish at 21 and amassed a fortune selling whale oil before his death in 1846.
ReMl TIL of Bill Macumber legal case who was accused of murdering of 2 people. But another man confessed the crime to his lawyer - before dying in a fight. Because of attorney-client privilege, the lawyer’s testimony was not presented, and Bill Macumber went to jail for 37 years.