4

Tipping Used To Be Profoundly Un-American

America believes so deeply in tipping that it's legal here to essentially not pay certain kinds of workers, leaving their financial fate up to the sheer charity of strangers. But for a good long chunk of history, we had the exact opposite attitude. When tipping first started in post-Civil-War America, people called it "a cancer in the breast of democracy." We'd just fought a war over slavery and segregation was still going strong, but sure, tipping was the big issue of the times.

W.E. BartYep, we'd totally solved racism by then.

3

Victorian Londoners Got Mad If The Mail Didn't Come 12 Times A Day

There's a general consensus that technology is great and all, but it's also turning our brains into Swiss cheese. Why, look at today's vapid instant messaging conversations, and then look at the Victorian Era, when you would write your beloved a novel-length letter and then raise a child or two while patiently waiting for the answer to arrive.

Just kidding, we've always been dumb and impatient. Even in the 1880s, people demanded constant communication -- it was just way, way more difficult. In London, this need was met by having the mail delivered 12 times a day. Every single house in the city had a mail carrier pass by at multiple hours, just in case somebody was involved in a midday pre-internet sexting spree.

Because of this, Victorian letter writers intentionally wrote shorter correspondence. Many letters ended with the phrase "return of post," which was old-timey speak for "respond quickly, asshole." People were so impatient that mail services got major complaints if letters weren't received within a couple of hours. Of course, not all mail was welcome. As we've covered, Victorian England also had telegram spam, which is proof that we're not getting stupider; we're simply more effective at being stupid.

Related: The 5 Worst Legal Defenses Actually Attempted In Court

2

Thanksgiving Used To Be Like A More Chaotic And Racist Halloween

Thanksgiving wasn't always about shopping sprees and hiding in the kitchen from your anti-vaxxer relatives. No, back in simpler, more wholesome times, people respected the spirit of the holiday by, uh ... begging for money and mocking other races. Back in the mid-1800s and early 1900s, Thanksgiving was widely recognized as a time to put on disguises and run around town like maniacs. Popular costume choices included parrot masks, cross-dressing, and of course, pure racism.

Bain News Service / Library of CongressThis is scarier than 99 percent of actual Halloween costumes, and they're not even trying.

1

White People Thought Coca-Cola Would Turn Black People Into Rapists

We've all heard the classic Coke vs. Pepsi arguments, but it used to be a little easier to tell who was supposed to drink what. See if you can guess from these old advertisements for Pepsi ...

PepsiCo, Inc.

PepsiCo, Inc.

... and Coke:

The Coca-Cola Company

The Coca-Cola CompanyWe're singling out Coke specifically here, but make no mistake, Dr. Pepper, 7 Up, and RC Cola kept it white as a debutante ball, too.

That's right. Pepsi was for black people, and Coke was for ... pasty gremlins, apparently. This wasn't some innocent coincidence or anything. Coke and Pepsi knew exactly what they were doing. See, Coca-Cola was originally served with a splash of cocaine, hence the name. Everybody was cool with this, until they realized that *gasp* black people could buy this drink too. Middle-class white people worried that blacks would take a sip of Coke, become cocaine addicts, and then go around raping white women. The makers of Coke, desperate to avoid controversy, removed the cocaine from the beverage and intentionally stopped advertising their product anywhere where it could be easily seen by black people (that whole "segregation" thing came in pretty handy there).

That's when Pepsi stepped in. Seeing Coke's racism as opening up an "untapped market" in society, Pepsi hired an entire "negro markets" department dedicated to ensuring black people drank their sweet, sweet nectar. They went all in, hiring black salesmen, using black celebrities in advertising, and even circulating the racist shit that Coke's CEO had said.

Eventually, the two companies decided to shed their labels as "white" and "black" sodas, and transition to something more neutral. Now we know both are horrific for everybody's bodies.

Jordan Breeding also writes for a whole mess of other people, the Twitter, and a weird amount of gas station bathrooms.

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