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u/ralphbernardo

r/shutdownfullcast r/JumpChain r/PeepShowQuotes r/NotMyJob r/ShermanPosting r/ancientroma r/occult r/TheDollop r/HumorInPoorTaste r/comedybangbang r/politics r/alaska r/camphalfblood r/SiliconValleyHBO r/todayilearned
TIL that in classical Athens, a wealthy citizen assigned to equip and maintain a warship could challenge a man he claimed was richer under a procedure called "antidosis," in which the challenged man had to take on the expense, swap property with him, or let a jury decide which was wealthier.
▲ 2.9k r/todayilearned

TIL that in classical Athens, a wealthy citizen assigned to equip and maintain a warship could challenge a man he claimed was richer under a procedure called "antidosis," in which the challenged man had to take on the expense, swap property with him, or let a jury decide which was wealthier.

en.wikipedia.org
u/ralphbernardo — 1 day ago
▲ 4.2k r/todayilearned

TIL that people who didn't recognize the candidates successfully predicted over 70% of U.S. Senate election winners just by looking at their photos and judging who looked more "competent," according to a Princeton study.

princeton.edu
u/ralphbernardo — 3 days ago
▲ 4.8k r/todayilearned

TIL Republican Rome disdained wearing pants as the mark of barbarians, viewing Greek draped clothing as the emblem of civilization. As their empire expanded beyond the Mediterranean, the warmth provided by pants led Rome to adopt them, first as military garments borrowed from the Celts.

en.wikipedia.org
u/ralphbernardo — 6 days ago
▲ 1.5k r/todayilearned

TIL of “devotio,” an ancient Roman ritual in which a general vowed to sacrifice his own life in battle—along with the enemy army—to the gods of the underworld in exchange for victory. Livy preserves the prayer of the consul Decius Mus, who devoted the enemy’s legions “along with myself.”

en.wikipedia.org
u/ralphbernardo — 8 days ago
🔥 Hot ▲ 11.1k r/ancientroma+1 crossposts

TIL that the Roman Emperor Vitellius put to death nearly every contractor, money-lender, and tax-gatherer who had ever demanded that he repay a debt or pay a toll. When one man's execution was recalled, Vitellius had him killed anyway in his presence, saying he wished to "feast his eyes."

en.wikisource.org
u/OlorixTheMad — 10 days ago
▲ 3.5k r/todayilearned

TIL Green Lantern was inspired by a real lantern: in January 1940, artist Martin Nodell saw a trainman waving a lantern along the darkened tracks of Manhattan's 34th Street subway station. The lantern went from red to green—"Green meant go and I decided that was it."

en.wikipedia.org
u/ralphbernardo — 12 days ago
▲ 415 r/todayilearned

TIL Nikolai Fyodorov, founding figure of Russian cosmism, advocated using science to defeat death and resurrect every dead ancestor as humanity's "Common Task." The late 19th to early 20th century movement counted spaceflight pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky among its key figures.

en.wikipedia.org
u/ralphbernardo — 15 days ago
▲ 5.0k r/todayilearned

TIL that all five words of the Sator Square appear in Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" as the villain (SATOR), an art forger (AREPO), the film title (TENET), the opening (OPERA) scene, and a security company (ROTAS). It is a Roman palindrome, whose earliest example was found in the ruins of Pompeii.

gamesradar.com
u/ralphbernardo — 24 days ago
🔥 Hot ▲ 20.0k r/camphalfblood+2 crossposts

TIL the Romans had a ritual called "evocatio": during a siege, they formally invited the enemy city's guardian deity to abandon it for the Roman side, promising a more lavish temple. It doubled as psychological warfare and mitigated the otherwise sacrilegious looting of religious images.

en.wikipedia.org
u/Stupefactionist — 27 days ago
🔥 Hot ▲ 25.3k r/JumpChain+1 crossposts

TIL ancient Greeks treated every stranger as a potential god in disguise. Their hospitality code, "xenia," required hosts to bathe and feed guests before even asking their name—because a bad host risked the wrath of Zeus. The Trojan War was framed as punishment for violating it.

en.wikipedia.org
u/Nerx — 1 month ago
▲ 2.3k r/todayilearned

TIL a practical joke created a real book: annoyed at how bestseller lists were made, radio host Jean Shepherd urged listeners to ask bookstores for "I, Libertine"—a novel that didn't exist. Fans spread the hoax so widely that Ballantine Books hired Theodore Sturgeon to write it, publishing in 1956.

en.wikipedia.org
u/ralphbernardo — 2 months ago
🔥 Hot ▲ 14.7k r/todayilearned

TIL Thomas Jefferson wrote "our fellow subjects" in his rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, then erased "subjects" while the ink was still wet and wrote "citizens" over it. The edit was suspected for decades but only confirmed in 2010 by hyperspectral imaging at the Library of Congress.

loc.gov
u/ralphbernardo — 2 months ago
▲ 1.4k r/alaska+1 crossposts

TIL in response to a potential Soviet invasion of Alaska, the U.S. Air Force and FBI established Operation Washtub, training ordinary Alaskans—bartenders, bush pilots, ministers, trappers—as civilian "stay-behind" agents to spy on Soviet forces. One recruit skipped training, claiming a bear hunt.

adn.com
u/AKStafford — 2 months ago
🔥 Hot ▲ 6.2k r/todayilearned

TIL Akihiko Kondo spent 2 million yen on a formal 2018 wedding to symbolically marry the virtual singer Hatsune Miku—a character he credits with helping him return to work and reconnect with society. When her hologram service shut down in 2020, newspapers dubbed him the "first digital widower."

en.wikipedia.org
u/ralphbernardo — 2 months ago
🔥 Hot ▲ 31.7k r/todayilearned

TIL Marvin Pipkin, as a new GE recruit, solved the "impossible" task of making an inside-frosted lightbulb—a job handed to new hires as an induction ritual into the challenges of research—since every previous attempt had failed. Nobody had told him it couldn't be done.

spark.iop.org
u/ralphbernardo — 2 months ago
🔥 Hot ▲ 41.2k r/ShermanPosting+2 crossposts

TIL in 1947, scientists dumped crushed dry ice into a hurricane just to "see what would happen." The storm then made a 135-degree turn, strengthened, and struck Georgia—sparking public outrage and threats of lawsuits over the experiment.

aoml.noaa.gov
u/ElmCityGrad — 2 months ago