› added 7 years ago

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TIL when Beethoven was challenged to an improvisation duel by one of his rivals named Steibelt, Beethoven took a piece of Steibelt’s music, turned it upside down, played it, then improvised on that theme for over an hour. Steibelt simply left halfway through.

woGx6 TIL about the Macintosh TV. This Mac was based on the Macintosh Performa 520 but with a black case and a TV tuner built in. It sold poorly, selling only around 10,000 units and was discontinued in Febuary 1994 less than 4 months after release. This was the first Mac to come in a black case.
E1myP TIL about Sarah Rector, who became rich at 12 due to an oil strike on her land. The Oklahoma Legislature declared her to be a white person in 1913, so that she would be allowed to travel in first-class accommodations on the railroad, as befitted her position.
Oo1YR TIL Mozilla is originally a portmanteau of "Mosaic Killer", the dominant browser at the time. Mosaic was then renamed to Netscape, which forced Microsoft to in turn create Internet Explorer.
graW4 TIL one estimate claims that Earth may have 1 trillion species. However, only 1.75–1.8 million have been named and 1.8 million documented in a central database. These currently living species represent less than one per cent of all species that have ever lived on Earth.
mrMM TIL that a freelance photographer for the NY post took a photo of a man climbing out of the way of a subway train, rather than helping him. The picture ran the next day front page with the title “DOOMED!” His excuse was that he was trying to warn the driver with his camera’s flash.