› added 9 years ago

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TIL in Renaissance Italy, the Court Carver perfected the art of mid-air meat carving. To entertain guests he could lift a turkey in the air on a fork and rapidly cut the meat so that it rained down onto the diner’s plates in a decorative pattern of slices. Eggs and fruit were carved the same way.

YWyG TIL that there was a nuclear worker which triggered radiation alarms when he came to work, despite being checked that he was “clean” before leaving. It turned out that his house was on top of a natural source of radon gas.
5YY0B TIL that following his development of the icepick lobotomy, Dr. Walter Freeman began traveling across the country visiting mental institutions in his personal van, which he called the "lobotomobile".
KOEPa TIL Yogi Bear used to be the mascot of a chicken restaurant franchise, and when they all closed, the statues were dumped in the middle of a forest. This site became a tourist attraction in and of itself, known as the "Yogi Bear Graveyard".
BgJ7L TIL that the volcanic destruction of Pompeii didn't kill everyone; archeologists now believe most of the population survived, based on the lack of carts, horses, ships and valuables in the ruins; they've also found later inscriptions with Pompeiian family names in nearby cities
l7EW7 TIL Captain Video and His Video Rangers (1949-55) was one of the first science fiction TV shows and had a run of 1537 episodes. Only about 20 of the episodes survive today as as the original recordings were dumped in the ocean off the coast of New York.