"TIL Andromachi Papanicolaou, the wife of the man who invented the Pap smear volunteered to have her cervix sampled every day for 21 years to help with his research. Their findings went on to save the lives of millions of women by preventing the development of cervical cancer through early detection"
"TIL Eleanor Roosevelt held her own press conferences where only female journalists were allowed. This ensured they kept their jobs during Depression-era layoffs, earning a steady income & professional status"
"TIL that Billie Joe Armstrong once dropkicked a guy in the middle of a Green Day concert after he saw him roughing up a young girl. He stopped the show and challenged him to a fight before jumping into the crowd"
"TIL landlords in Glasgow, Scotland tried to increase rent by 25% on women whose husbands were fighting in World War 1. The women organised a rent strike and stopped bailiffs entering their buildings by throwing flour bombs at them and pulling down their trousers"
"TIL that New Zealand author Janet Frame was falsely diagnosed as schizophrenic and was scheduled to be lobotomised. Several days before the operation, she won New Zealand's most prestigious literary prize, convincing doctors to cancel the procedure"
"TIL Charles Darwin's personal pet tortoise (Harriet) didn't die until recently at an estimated age of 175 years"
"TIL about Janet Stephens, a hair stylist turned hairstyle archeologist. She visited a museum in 2001 and realized historians were wrong about hairstyles on Greek and Roman statues being wigs. She recreated the styles and published her findings in The Journal of Roman Archaeology"
"TIL The Python programming language was named after Monty Python, not a snake"
"TIL John Steinbeck spent two months rewriting 'Of Mice and Men' after his dog ate the only copy of the original manuscript"
"TIL Salivating before vomiting is a way for your body to protect your teeth from the incoming stomach acid'
"TIL upon request, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his copy of the "I have a dream" speech he had just delivered to the then security guard George Raveling. Raveling has been offered as much as $3 million for the original copy but he has refused all offers"
"TIL that the 'inner-voice' of most life-long & completely deaf people is seeing/feeling themselves acting out sign language"
"TIL that in 2017 an 8 year old learned how to drive on YouTube and successfully drove to McDonalds while following traffic laws"
"TIL the BBC initially refused to publish Richard Dimbleby's eye witness account of Belsen concentration camp in April 1945, they didn't believe it was as terrible as he described. It's estimated 70,000 people died at Belsen. The BBC only agreed to broadcast after Dimbleby threatened to resign"
"TIL There was so much [poop] in the streets of 14th century Paris that multiple roads had names which originated from the french word for [poop], "merde": rue Merdeux, rue Merdelet, rue Merdusson, rue des Merdons, and rue Merdiere. There was also a rue de Pipi, or "Urine Street""
"TIL The Parthenon in Athens was largely intact for over 2000 years. The heavily damaged ruins we see today are not due to natural forces or the passage of time but rather a massive explosion in 1687"
"TIL in 2013 a surgeon in the UK was struck off and convicted of assault after branding his initials into two patients livers. It was only discovered when 1.6-inch (4cm) initials were discovered by another doctor on an organ that he had transplanted failed"
"TIL Ostrich farms routinely have difficulties getting male ostriches to breed, because they often find their human caretakers more attractive than female ostriches"
"TIL in 1977 Indian painter, PK Mahanandia, sold his belongings and cycled 4,000 miles from India to Sweden to visit his love, Charlotte von Schedvin because he couldn't afford a plane ticket. They got married in 1979"
"TIL about a woman named Iva Toguri (Tokyo Rose) an American woman who used her position to undermine Japanese propaganda during WW2. She was named a traitor to the USA , and arrested for treason,it took her 30 years to prove her innocence"
"TIL Julius Chambers of the New-York Tribune had himself committed to an asylum in 1872, and his account led to the release of 12 patients who were not mentally ill, a reorganization of the staff, and a change in the lunacy laws"
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As for the "stupid" Venetians, perhaps back in 1687 they considered it more important to drive the Muslims out of Greece than protect Athena's temple.
he never saw it coming