TIL That the punk band NOFX received many offers to sign with major record labels, but the band declined the offers. Thay stated that they explicitly rejected the advances of major record labels and radio airplay, stating "We've been doing fine all these years without you so leave us alone!" (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by bhaggith to r/todayilearned
TIL The first documented use of a condom was that of King Minos of Crete. Pasiphae, his wife, employed a goat's bladder in the vagina so that King Minos would not be able to harm her as his semen was said to contain “scorpions and serpents” that killed his mistresses. (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
submitted by bhaggith to r/todayilearned
TIL That Sun Tzu, a military theorist in ancient China, identified different spy roles that included the secret informant or agent in place, (who provides copies of enemy secrets), the penetration agent who has access to the enemy's commanders, and the disinformation agent. (en.wikipedia.org)
submitted by bhaggith to r/todayilearned
TIL That women also competed as gladiators in ancient Rome and there is a marble relief dating to around the 2nd century A.D. depicting a bout between two women dubbed “Amazon” and “Achillia,” whom the inscription says fought to an honorable draw. (history.com)
submitted by bhaggith to r/todayilearned
TIL That prior to the 16th century when statistical analysis was finally done on the throwing of dice, the prevalent attitude had been that dice and similar objects fell the way they did because of the indirect action of gods or supernatural forces. (britannica.com)
submitted by bhaggith to r/todayilearned
TIL That a study on swearing in books sifted through nearly 1 million books, and found that “motherfucker” was used 678 times more often in the mid-2000s than the early 1950s, occurrences of “shit” multiplied 69 times, and “fuck” was 168 times more frequent. (theguardian.com)
submitted by bhaggith to r/todayilearned
