› added 11 years ago

557

TIL the word ‘paparazzi’ is derived from the Italian term for a very large mosquito.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

l7Z1 TIL Goldman Sachs owned 16% of the biggest forum for sex trafficking of under-age girls in the United States for more than six years and sat on the company’s board for 4.
7rX0p TIL that the Great Wall of China, stretching over 20,000 km (13,000 miles) and built over centuries, never effectively prevented invaders from entering China.
69pxl TIL that Toyota Motor Co was originally named after it's founder Toyoda, but the name was changed to Toyota because it sounds better and in Japanese characters it is 8 strokes, a lucky number, versus the 10 strokes for Toyoda. (Obviously in Japanese, not anglicized spelling)
9w8lD TIL that many people are convinced that they saw a movie in the 90's called Shazaam, starring Sinbad. This movie doesn't actually exist and is an example of a shared false memory.
Z8ZRQ TIL Charles Babbage "the father of the computer" also invented the pilot , the pointy thing on the front of older trains, to remove cows from the track.