› added 12 years ago

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TIL: The Guinness Book of Records was created because the director of the Guinness Breweries got in an argument over what was Europe’s fastest game bird while hunting, and thought that there must be other questions debated nightly in pubs throughout Ireland. It was originally a marketing giveaway.

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4XgKo TIL: In 2016, Facebook livestreamed a murder in Chicago but later refused to take the video down "because it doesn't violate the company's community standards".
8oNb TIL Neil deGrasse Tyson assisted DC Comics in selecting a real-life star that would be an appropriate parent star to Superman’s home planet Krypton. A red dwarf star in the constellation Corvus was chosen. Corvus is also Latin for “Crow” which is the mascot of Superman’s high school.
LkyVv TIL that since every baby girl is born with up to two million eggs in her ovaries, a woman who is pregnant with a girl is not only carrying her baby — but also the beginnings of her grandchild, and her diet and lifestyle can impact the make-up of the eggs in the child’s reproductive system.
9wpNM TIL that the timeframe between 9 BC and 9 AD is known as the "0s". The world population at the time is speculated to have been 150-300 million people, 3.75% of the population today.
8aMv8 TIL that in 2006 a secret speech by the Hungarian Prime Minister was leaked in which he admitted that they lied all the time during their term and didn't do anything useful. It provoked nationwide protests including a siege of the Hungarian Television building.