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The 'Today I Learned' or TIL channel, forwards hot posts from /r/todayIlearned. This channel doesn't add advertisements to the source url.
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TIL of the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest, an April Fool's Day prank pulled by the BBC in 1957. Their highly respected news anchor reported a good harvest due to the disappearance of the 'Spaghetti Weevil', accompanied by footage of people removing spaghetti from trees. This sparked many complaints.
https://ift.tt/1L0NeZi

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 02:54AM by SplittingHares
via reddit https://ift.tt/3aod9fp
TIL There is a famous Australian pub rock song about grieving over the loss of a romantic partner. The chorus sings "Am I ever gonna see your face again?" It is Australian tradition for the crowd to shout "No way, get fucked, fuck off."
https://ift.tt/2JftW8x

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 09:53AM by WarniesLatestRoot
via reddit https://ift.tt/3amELBD
TIL that in the 1952 polio epidemic in Denmark, mortality was over 85 per cent due to a shortage of respirators. Dr Bjorn Ibsen invented a new kind of ventilator, proved it worked and then recruited thousands of volunteers to hand-pump them for weeks (they were fully manual). Mortality fell to 26%.
https://ift.tt/39ocHMT

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 08:21AM by TomasTTEngin
via reddit https://ift.tt/39k3cOM
TIL hundreds of Canadian doctors asked for their own pay raises to be canceled. An open letter was signed by GPs, specialists, residents, and med students who asked for the money to be reallocated to others such as nurses.
https://ift.tt/2tzcZRw

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 04:04PM by Miskatonica
via reddit https://ift.tt/2QQww8Z
TIL Ross Lebeau, 24, was charged with possessing almost half a pound of methamphetamine. 2 field tests also yielded positive results. However, later it was found to be cat littler. It was to keep the windows from fogging up.
https://ift.tt/2JhYUg9

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 02:30PM by shampoo_and_dick
via reddit https://ift.tt/2JkxqGE
TIL the Crying Indian in the Keep America Beautiful ad was really an Italian guy named Espera "Oscar" de Conti. He moved to Hollywood, changed his name to Iron Eyes Cody and had a 60-year career as an Indian. Even after being found out he still claimed to be Cherokee and Cree, not Sicilian.
https://ift.tt/2JiB1VA

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 05:46PM by marmorset
via reddit https://ift.tt/3dD92OG
TIL In the 16th century a Ruthenian/Ukrainian woman was taken captive and brought to Istanbul as a slave. Her joyful spirit earned her a name Hurrem - "the Cheerful One”. She rose to become Suleiman's legal wife and "Queen of the Ottoman Empire" known in history as Hurrem Sultan or Roxelana
https://ift.tt/2JlROXT

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 04:57PM by HydrolicKrane
via reddit https://ift.tt/3aorZT5
TIL that "Baby Huey" was a 400lbs Chicago soul singer who died in 1970 at age 26 after releasing a single album. The album later became hugely influential on early hip-hop artists, eventually being sampled on hundreds of tracks over the past ~40 years
https://ift.tt/2JgMGEF

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 07:18PM by wowbobwow
via reddit https://ift.tt/2UGdSSr
TIL of the Korean TV programme, 'Finding Dispersed Families', that aired in 1983 and was responsible for reuniting over 10,000 Koreans with family that they had lost during the Korean War. Originally planned to be 95 minutes, the programme went on to run for 453 hours, with over 53,000 participants.
https://ift.tt/2UAkZfa

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 02:44PM by seppukusama
via reddit https://ift.tt/39o1hJ5
TIL in the 40's hundreds of Guatemalans were infected involuntarily with syphilis by Johns Hopkins University, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and the Rockefeller Foundation. A court case is underway to this day on behalf of 444 victims resulting in 83 deaths.
https://ift.tt/3bsQIWv

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 09:34PM by strictlyrebel
via reddit https://ift.tt/2QMzZW8
Today I learned that the Russian Orthodox Church regularly blesses Russian Military Hardware, but has decided that it is inappropriate to bless weapons of mass destruction
https://ift.tt/2vTve5U

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 06:28PM by Ghtgsite
via reddit https://ift.tt/2WN38nT
TIL The US had to abandon construction of a border fort in New York State after realising that they'd accidentally built it on the Canadian side of the border. It was promptly nicknamed "Fort Blunder".
https://ift.tt/2q3sv4x

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 11:19PM by astrath
via reddit https://ift.tt/3btXzyS
TIL that the cheese slicer (Ostehøvel) was invented by Thor Bjørklund (Nor). The legend has it that, frustrated at the un-even cheese slices he cut with a knife, he wanted to improve the cheese world. He realized that a carpenter’s plane could do the job and the cheese slicer was born.
https://ift.tt/2xAo9Vu

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 10:13PM by Xaintailles
via reddit https://ift.tt/2y97Fqs
TIL that Mike Myers thought up the Austin Powers character while driving home one day. His radio was playing Burt Bacharach’s “The Look of Love”, and he was with his then-wife Robin Ruzan. Myers asked her if he was “making her horny”. She told him to stop it and write his new character down.
https://ift.tt/2JhvrDb

Submitted March 27, 2020 at 06:42PM by Numerous-Lemon
via reddit https://ift.tt/2yhFF4h
TIL that Exxon used to be known as Esso, a phonetic spelling of "S.O." for Standard Oil after it was forced to break up into 34 smaller companies. It is still widely known as Esso outside the US.
https://ift.tt/XCgIs7

Submitted March 28, 2020 at 02:09AM by Taman_Should
via reddit https://ift.tt/2UpqZbW
TIL of Domino's "Paving for Pizza" campaign which offers cities $5,000 grants to help them repair potholes. In exchange, cities are to fill potholes & stencil on a Domino’s logo. For example, Milford, DE got 40 "Domino's brand pothole fills"; Athens, GA got 150; Bartonville, TX got 8.
https://ift.tt/2wHIFGx

Submitted March 28, 2020 at 03:28AM by Miskatonica
via reddit https://ift.tt/2UmFtcr
TIL about Andrew Jackson's assassination attempt. After Lawrence's pistols misfired, Jackson credited divine providence with intervening on his behalf. A century later, both pistols were tested and fired at the first shot. The odds that both would misfire was estimated to be about 1 in 125,000.
https://ift.tt/3aBnzbm

Submitted March 28, 2020 at 04:52AM by agarriberri33
via reddit https://ift.tt/2WNZsSV