› added 2 years ago

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TIL The White House was officially named such by Theodore Roosevelt in 1901. Before then, it was called "the Executive Mansion."

0dAXR TIL: There is a Japanese legend about pirates rescuing a woman, who then slept with them then cut off their testicles. They threw her back into the ocean, where she turned into a Sazae-oni (demon) and traded their balls for their gold. This led to the term kin-tama or golden balls in Japanese.
wLRP7 TIL that Formosa Province in Argentina is the antipode with Taiwan, which was historically also known as Formosa. European sailors speaking different languages gave the same name to two areas at exact opposite points of the Earth.
GYmEJ TIL that Archimedes once said, "'Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." This is based on the law of the lever which has proven that by trading force for distance, a human could move the earth if they were given a long enough lever.
j6jaX TIL I learned that the the town of Boring (Oregon, US) established relationship with village of Dull (Scotland, UK) in 2012; the following year they were joined with the Shire of Bland (New South Wales, AU) to form the League of Extraordinary Communities.
KO0bE TIL that birds not only can see in Ultraviolet, but that their feathers have patterns which can only be seen in UV. This explains why the males and females of certain species may look the same to us, but in reality, are very different in eachother’s eyes.