The "Today I Learned" Thread • Page 14

TIL that The Baha Men are named that because they are from the Bahamas

 

TIL the reason why Mormons don't drink coffee or tea isn't because they necessarily don't believe in caffeine. It's because of an old LDS church rule that drinking hot drinks was unsafe. It's more about temperature than caffeine. Because of this in Salt Lake City there are more upscale soda shops than Starbucks.

There is also some muddled parts of this rule because Mormons will drink caffeinated soda and energy drinks; won't drink coldbrew, iced coffee, or iced tea; but still drink hot chocolate. Even Mormons admit it makes little sense.

 

Yeah the whole “soda is okay, coffee isn’t” thing never made any sense to me. Funny to see that they’re self-aware about it.

 

TIL two things about Peet’s Coffee:

1. Peet’s owns Stumptown Coffee and purchased them in 2015

Alfred Peet (Peet’s founder) was actually a mentor to the three founders of Starbucks and taught them much about coffee trade. Starbucks also sold Peet’s beans their first few years of operation. I actually already knew this, but what I learned today is:

2. Jerry Baldwin (one of Starbucks founders) actually bought Peet’s in 1984 and sold his share of Starbucks in 1987. He was the chairman of Peet’s until 2001, but is now the director of the company

 

TIL Jamie Lee Curtis invented a new type of diaper

 

obligatory Activia mention

 

TIL: Maryland is the only state that has banned ownership of flame throwers. California is the only state that requires a permit to own one

 

Boobytrap backwards is party boob

 

TIL Natasha Lyonne was on Pee Wee's Playhouse as a kid

 

TIL New York City sanitation workers get military style ceremonial dress uniforms

 

TIL Pee Wee’s Playhouse is now available to stream on HBO Max, which means I know what I’ll be binging now for the next couple weeks

 

TIL that movie trailers were initially played after the movie, not before.

 

TIL earth days were about 23 hours in the age of dinosaurs

 

TIL most modern archeology (especially in the US) isn't at all like it is on movies/tv. The vast majority of archeologists work for private contracting firms doing surveys ensuring that new construction development projects are not like disturbing unmarked graves and things like that, and the pay for that isn't great either. The kind of exciting Indiana Jones academic archeological field work where you excavate artifacts of lost civilizations is pretty rare in the field now.

 

TIL: You can steam cupcakes

 

I guess that would explain the name if they originally trailed the movie

 

TIL: There are technically no original members in the band Napalm Death

 

Even crazier to me is that they only had like one original member left recording the B side of their first record

 

TIL In the UK, they refer to American bacon as "streaky bacon"

 

TIL The Eiffel Tower can grow as much as six inches taller in the summer

 

Dude Ranch is a cum joke.

 

TIL: Pepsi technically owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC. Apparently Pepsi was struggling to get into the fast food marketplace and they discovered that it would actually be cheaper for them to take on their own fast food chains. So they purchased all three chains between 1977 and 1986.

Eventually they formed a spin-off company that maintains their fast food chains which is now named Yum! Brand.

They also used to own A&W and Long John Silvers and they currently own The Habit

(I knew about Yum! and which chains they owned for years but I actually didn’t know it was owned by Pepsi)

EDIT: This is also why combination Pizza Hut/Taco Bells and KFC/Taco Bells exist

 

TIL that Sam has never listened to Doughboys

 

I mean, you’re not wrong

 

Do they technically still own them though if Yum! split into their own seperate entity?