› added 1 year ago

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TIL that the original Samsung Galaxy Note was criticised for being "too big" with it's 5.3" screen, and that people would look "like a fool" holding the phone up to use the video call function.

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lnZr TIL Oral sex was illegal in Canada… Until 1969
RKQl TIL that a German POW escaped his American prison camp near the end of WWII, and lived in the US for 40 years under a fake name, before finally admitting the fraud on the Today Show. His name was Georg Gärtner.
0dPR TIL a prisoner was kept in a 9x7 cell w/no light, clock, or calendar. If he left his cell, he was fitted with goggles and headphones. He started having tics and unusual contortions of his body. He became convinced his lawyers were part of an interrogation program and his captors were protectors.
kOxE4 TIL in 1953 four editors from the Harvard Crimson newspaper stole a birdsh*t covered ibis statue from their rival- the Harvard Lampoon. The editors talked their way into a meeting with the Soviet Ambassador, and gifted the ibis to the USSR as ‘symbol of the universality of the search for truth'
N7VD6 TIL of the Murray Gell-Man Amnesia Effect, i.e., we give newspapers the benefit of the doubt even after we catch them being inaccurate on subjects we know about. (Term was coined by Michael Crichton in "Why Speculate?")