Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

Archberdmans t1_j9p2g36 wrote

Reply to comment by GrandmaPoses in TIL Sheriff Jordan, the leader of the posse that killed Bonnie & Clyde, attempted to keep the stolen car in which they were ambushed and shot to death. The car's legal owner sued the Sheriff for possession of the car then drove it to Shreveport, still covered with blood & human tissue. by Shark-Farts

I’d bet that the phrase “bust a cap” comes before widespread use of metallic cartridges, because of the percussion cap which was used on muzzleloaders

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AgentElman t1_j9p168s wrote

Reply to comment by NewCanadianMTurker in TIL The Marvel No-Prize is a empty envelope that Marvel awarded fans for "meritorious service to the cause of Marveldom". Typically it was won by submitting an explanation for an error in a comic, but rules varied from author to author. The prize was inspired by George R. R. Martin. by jamescookenotthatone

It was not supposed to be anything. The back of comics had a letters section and Stan Lee would respond to the letters. He would write "you won a No Prize". He was joking, but people would then write back saying they had not received it.

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1980pzx t1_j9p0ggb wrote

Reply to comment by Southern_Blue in TIL Sheriff Jordan, the leader of the posse that killed Bonnie & Clyde, attempted to keep the stolen car in which they were ambushed and shot to death. The car's legal owner sued the Sheriff for possession of the car then drove it to Shreveport, still covered with blood & human tissue. by Shark-Farts

It is classic Americana. I think it would’ve been cool to see as a teenager. How young was your friend?

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GrandmaPoses t1_j9oytxz wrote

Reply to TIL Sheriff Jordan, the leader of the posse that killed Bonnie & Clyde, attempted to keep the stolen car in which they were ambushed and shot to death. The car's legal owner sued the Sheriff for possession of the car then drove it to Shreveport, still covered with blood & human tissue. by Shark-Farts

>The deafened officers inspected the vehicle and discovered an arsenal of weapons, including stolen automatic rifles, sawed-off semi-automatic shotguns, assorted handguns, and several thousand rounds of ammunition, along with fifteen sets of license plates from various states.[101] Hamer stated: "I hate to bust the cap on a woman, especially when she was sitting down, however if it wouldn't have been her, it would have been us."

TIL that term goes back a long way.

>Preliminary embalming was done by Bailey in a small preparation room in the back of the furniture store, as it was common for furniture stores and undertakers to share the same space.

TIL this as well, wtf?

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Froakiebloke t1_j9oxwtn wrote

Reply to comment by Adiwik in TIL that in 1554 Elizabeth Crofts hid in a wall on Aldersgate Street, where she pretended to be a heavenly voice. Reputedly 17,000 people came to listen to her give out anti-Catholic propaganda. by Kurma-the-Turtle

She wasn’t burned, likely because she confessed and recanted; except for than the big names like Archbishop Cranmer, the Marian regime largely only burned people who wouldn’t recant their heresies

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TheCloudFestival t1_j9owbuc wrote

Reply to TIL that in 1554 Elizabeth Crofts hid in a wall on Aldersgate Street, where she pretended to be a heavenly voice. Reputedly 17,000 people came to listen to her give out anti-Catholic propaganda. by Kurma-the-Turtle

It's genuinely amazing when you begin to realise how completely credulous people in the past were.

I know we're not necessarily much better now, but as time goes on the methods needed to fool people are becoming more and more sophisticated.

When you look at the history of magic, conjuring, spiritualism, etc, you come across thousands of cases in centuries past of people being completely fooled and taken in by the most mundane trickery.

A personal favourite of mine is the 'Floating Bowl of Floating Apples' trick where a conjurer would make a bowl filled with water in which apples were floating appear to levitate and move around the stage. This trick absolutely bamboozled audiences for decades. Conjurers who performed it were accused of actual witchcraft, and even other professional conjurers engaged in the most intense espionage to try and figure out how it was done.

The whole trick was quite literally stage hands dressed in black velvet against a black velvet backdrop in a dimly lit theatre picking up and carrying the bowl around, something that today a five year old would posit as the obvious solution from just a single showing, yet trying to figure the trick out drove people in the C18th and C19th nuts.

Just go and look at old photographs of mediums producing 'ectoplasm'. One glimpse and you'll conclude that the 'ectoplasm' is just gauze covered in some sticky substance that they're pulling from a pocket or underneath their clothes, and yet even Royal Society scientists, doctors, bishops, lawyers, politicians, etc, completely and sincerely believed they witnessed mediums producing genuine ectoplasm.

It kinda gives a whole new perspective to the 'miracles' of the more ancient religions. I don't doubt that ancient peoples genuinely believed someone died and was resurrected simply by being told a living person was in fact dead, and then watching said 'dead' person get up and move around.

Seriously, it's almost sweet how childishly naive people were to the most basic and facile of trickery.

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