🎓 TIL - Today I Learned but no 🐝

TIL before the “Great Depression” of the 1930s there was a prior “Great Depression” starting in 1873. The earlier depression was renamed the “Long Depression” after the 1930s eclipsed the original in severity. [source, comments]

TIL Nero's Domus Aurea was rediscovered at the end of the fifteenth century, requiring access from above, being lowed in via rope as in caves, or "grotte" in Italian. The extravagant decorative art found inspired a new art style, "grotesque", from the grottos in which they were found. [source, comments]

TIL that Ann B. Davis, who played Alice on "The Brady Bunch", had two Emmys under her belt and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 -- nine years before "The Brady Bunch" debuted. [source, comments]

TIL that in the mid-1980s, author Stephen King, who watched the G.I. Joe cartoon with his son and read the comic books, wrote to Hasbro with a pitch for a Cobra hypnotist character named Crystal Ball. Hasbro went on to produce the character in 1987. [source, comments]

TIL that during the 2014 World Cup, the Singaporean government aired an anti-gambling PSA where a boy complained that his father bet their life savings on Germany winning; this backfired when Germany actually won [source, comments]

TIL that after his voyage to Japan. In December of 1614, English merchant John Saris was discovered to have kept a collection of Japanese erotic art and books. His collection was publicly burnt, he was disgraced, and it ended his career. [source, comments]

TIL that for the bee sting death scene in My Girl (1991), production used thousands of real bees on a 10 year old Macaulay Culkin. To attract them, his hands were coated in a queen bee scent, and when the director yelled "cut," Culkin was told to run into the woods to escape. [source, comments]

TIL Dorothea Erxleben was the first female medical doctor in Germany in 1700s (often listed as first in Europe) She received a special permission to study medicine from Frederick the Great. She authored a protofeminist work ”A Thorough Inquiry into the Causes Preventing the Female Sex from Studying” [source, comments]

TIL: Part of the Amazon rainforest is actually in the European Union. French Guiana, located in South America, isn't just a dependency but an integral part of France and the EU, much like Alaska is a full part of the US. [source, comments]

TIL Hercules was a slave to the Queen of Lydia, where he was forced to where woman’s clothing and do domestic tasks, while she wore his lion pelt and bore his club. He married her once he was free. [source, comments]

TIL that in 1990, there was a short lived Brady Bunch hourlong dramedy where Marcia had become an alcoholic, Bobby becomes a paraplegic after a car accident, and Mike was going to die in a helicopter accident with Carol singing at his funeral. And the show had a laugh track. [source, comments]

TIL Pope Clement VII has been described by contemporaries and historians as a man so educated and intelligent that these qualitied rendered him almost unable to make any serious decisions. His commitment to considering all angles and consequences before taking any action led to historic failures [source, comments]

TIL that China alone accounts for nearly 50% of all cigarettes consumed in the world. Nearly half of adult men in China were smokers, compared to less than 2% of adult women. The state owned tobacco industry contributed almost $250 billion (USD) in revenue and dividends to China's central govt. [source, comments]

TIL there is a town in Australia, where half the population lives in underground homes because surface temperatures regularly hit 113°F (45°C). The golf course has no grass, so players carry a swatch of astro turf to tee off from on each hole. [source, comments]

TIL: Historically, banana peels really were a public sidewalk hazard. New York City newspapers contained accounts of "shockingly serious" banana-related injuries. [source, comments]

Today I learned that on June 4, 1993, Kurt Cobain was arrested for assaulting his wife Courtney Love. However, the charges were later dropped and Love denied that Kurt was a "wifebeater" to the press. [source, comments]

TIL that early into her reign, Queen Victoria deliberately rode a certain route to provoke a man who had threatened to shoot her the previous day. He did shoot at her, and was arrested immediately. [source, comments]

TIL British WW1 PM David Lloyd George was consistently pro-German after 1923 in part due to his conviction that Germany had been treated unfairly at Versailles. He supported German demands for territorial concessions and also called Hitler "the greatest living German". [source, comments]

TIL Mattel is preventing a remake of the kids' show "Wishbone" [source, comments]

TIL that before Abraham Lincoln became the 16th President he was an elite, trash talking competitive wrestler. He competed in wrestling matches across the American frontier, losing only 1 match out of 300 over a 12 year span, earning him a place in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. [source, comments]