› added 9 years ago

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TIL that the creators of UNIX came up with the name as a pun implying the word “Eunuchs”, as it was to be an emasculated version of the MULTICS operating system.

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D7Wj TIL that the purchase of Alaska from Russia by the U.S. was originally mocked by U.S. citizens, who called it “Andrew Johnson’s polar bear garden”
8aNW8 TIL that there's a variant of chess called Losing Chess, where the object of the game is to either have all your pieces get captured, or get stalemated.
W7jPB TIL that Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined 🌊🍁
VMwPp TIL that when a Jewish political opponent accused him of anti-semitism Fiorello La Guardia challenged him to a debate in Yiddish. The man couldn’t speak Yiddish so he declined - and lost the election.
9YPv7 TIL of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, who signed transit visas in Lithuania for more than 6,000 Jews in 1940. He wrote visas for 18-20 hours every day, continuing to sign them through the window of a train and throw them into the crowd as he fled Lithuania.