› added 12 years ago

380

TIL that in 19th Century carnivals in USA, cigars were given as prizes. People who lost at a particular sideshow were told; “close, but no cigar”.

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N7766 TIL Shel Silverstein wrote for Playboy, and published books of adult "erotica," in his unique style. I discovered this from a random purchase in a used book store, picking up "Different Dances." Album pics in the comments.
ndGB TIL of Arthur Ganson’s “Machine with Concrete”, a kinetic sculpture of 12 connected gear pairs with the last gear stuck in concrete. It can still turn though, due to gear reduction that cuts the rotational speed by 1/50th for each gear set. The last gear will take over 2 trillion years to turn once.
eO9E TIL US Army has a working prototype of a land-based laser cannon that can be guided by an Xbox controller
JYPw1 TIL that Dutch people, currently the tallest population in the world, actually used to be the shortest population in Europe just 150-200 years ago
78oAb TIL Origins of masturbation are traced to primates 40 million years ago