› added 12 years ago

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TIL: In 1976 there was a wine tasting in Paris that blindly compared Californian wines to French wines. California won and the lone reporter covering the event was blacklisted for reporting it.

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Eg9dX TIL of the Euphemistic Treadmill whereby euphemisms, which were originally the polite term (such as STD to refer to Venereal Disease) become themselves pejorative over time.
neo5W TIL about the Winchester Mansion, a 161-room California monstrosity built by widower Sarah Winchester, who's husband had invented the Winchester rifle. She believed that spirits of those killed by his rifles were haunting her; so she added rooms, hallways, and passages to nowhere to appease them.
jNrkj TIL the practice of Yoga is thousands of years old, but the physical exercise most associated with it today was introduced to India by the YMCA in the 1920s, and is based on Swedish and Danish gymnastics.
D1klP TIL that the QWERTY keyboard is deliberately a very inefficient way of typing
rNylw TIL there's an annual lying contest in England called "The World's Biggest Liar." Held in Cumbria, contestants vie to tell the most convincing lie within 5 minutes. Politicians and lawyers are barred from participating due to their reputed skill in deception.