› added 13 years ago

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TIL that metallic smell from old pennies and keys is actually just the smell of sweat from our bodies reacting with the metal, not the metal itself.

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8e9GL TIL of the Schultüte, which means "school cone" in English. It is a large attractively decorated cone filled with toys, chocolate, sweets, school supplies, and various other treats. The cones are given to German children by their parents and/or grandparents on their first day of first grade.
ZpVg4 TIL about Whipping Tom of 1681, a nickname given to a serial spanker in London. He would wait for an unaccompanied woman, grab her, lift her dress and slap her buttocks whiles shouting "Spanko!" before fleeing. Vigilantes would dress in women's clothing and patrol the areas he was known to operate.
VMelZ TIL Charles Simonyi was the first billionaire to go to space. Simonyi, a software architect and early Microsoft employee, paid a total of $60 million for two trips to the International Space Station. He entered orbit and spent a total of 4 weeks in space.
OQgg TIL in a Playboy interview, John Wayne said “Our so-called stealing of this country from (Native Americans) was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”
x6MED TIL about ZZZZ Best, a carpet-cleaning company founded by a 16 year old boy that went public and reached a valuation of $280 million. It was exposed as a Ponzi scheme after a homemaker was overcharged a few hundred dollars and ZZZZ Best ignored her requests to be paid back.