› added 8 months ago

35

TIL during the age of sail if a group was stranded without food it was customary to kill and eat a member of the group, with the victim determined by lot. The practice was largely ended via a legal decision in 1884.

9wWWm TIL that boxer Vitali Klitschko was never knocked down in the ring, and was actually winning on points against Lennox Lewis, when a cut above Klitschko’s eye was bad enough for Lewis to be deemed the winner.
M7G0A TIL a 2021 UK study analyzed hospital statistics for 2010-2019 and found that 3,500 rectal foreign bodies were removed during that 9-year period. It also determined that nearly 400 removals were performed each year with an annual cost to the NHS of £338,819.
RDd8 TIL of the german word “Bulimielernen” [= bulimia learning]. It describes the brainless activity of having to learn a lot of useless stuff in a short time, and “puking” the knowledge into an exam, so it is gone afterwards
8aXYP TIL Colonel Sanders was involved in a shootout with Matt Stewart, a local competitor, over the repainting of a sign directing traffic to his station. Stewart killed a Shell employee who was with Sanders and was convicted of murder, eliminating Sanders's competition.
v1pQr TIL of "hunger stones": the Central European practice of marking river levels with carved stones during droughts, to warn future generations that there will be a famine if the water level again gets low enough to see the carving. This has been done at least since 1115, and as recently as 2018.