› added 4 months ago

17

TIL: Wife selling was a practice in England for almost 2 centuries with last incident being in 1913 where one was sold to a coworker for £1. It ended unhappy marriages as divorces were expensive. Eventually there were public auctions that the wife had to agree to. You can even buy back your wife.

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via reddit.com

4kRWa TIL that DC published in 1999 the anthology comic Elseworlds 80-Page Giant, which had most of its copies recalled and destroyed because one story, titled "Letitia Lerner, Superman's Babysitter", had a baby Clark Kent climbing into a microwave.
M7yeK TIL that Neal McDonough refuses to ever kiss a female co-star in his acting roles
4rDb TIL that the father of French author Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers, etc.) was simultaneously born into slavery & nobility & became the highest ranking person of color of all time in a European Army.
VMmpQ TIL in an effort to keep birds of prey away from airports, French scientists discovered that raptors were repelled by an LED screen featuring a "googly eyes" image that appears to enlarge. Screens at an airport with over 8,000 bird sightings successfully reduced raptor visits during a 5 week trial.
xVeJg TIL that the most conservative Amish subgroup, the Swartzentruber Amish, are so strict that they even forbid the use of bicycles and velcro, considering them to be too modern.