› added 6 years ago

88

TIL of coin clipping, the act of shaving off a small portion of a precious metal coin for melting the clippings into bullion or to make new coins. Coin clipping is why many coins have the rim marked with stripes or other engravings, a counterfeiting practice devised by Issac Newton.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

9wE1B TIL During the famine of 1328-30 many cities in Italy expelled people to preserve supplies. Florence took them in and provided aid for them along with its own citizens. They established government taskforces that implemented relief measures and spent about 60k gold florins in aid programs
9neB TIL: The most successful intelligence operation in the Cold War; emptying supplies of Soviet Union toilet paper, forcing them to use documents, and retrieving these documents after use.
PYPye TIL that some black cats have recessive genes that make them look a different color under sunlight. Cats with the B gene will look black, b gene will look chocolate, and b' gene will look cinnamon. Spending too long under sunlight may start "rusting" and the cat will look that way on the shade too.
QNvBd TIL the Devil's Advocate used to be an official position in the Catholic Church whose job was to find evidence against a saint candidate.
jNyWX TIL that the first generations of spy satellites, "Corona" and "Zenith", took photographs, then ejected canisters of photographic film which would descend back down into Earth's atmosphere. Corona capsules were retrieved in mid-air as they floated down on parachutes.