› added 5 years ago

373

TIL that a company providing IP geolocation data assigned 300 million IP addresses to a rural Kansas farmhouse. This led to countless visits by police trying to find missing people, hackers, identity fraudsters and stolen cars.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

R5BL4 TIL that Leonardo da Vinci was a strong 15th Century animal rights activist and a devout vegetarian way before it was hip to be so.
X0Lx6 TIL that Muammar Gaddafi submitted a proposal to the UN that Switzerland be abolished as a state and merged into Italy, Germany, and France
16JG7 TIL that after being excommunicated by the Pope and threatened by the invasion of England by King Phillipe II of France, King John was in negotiations with the Almohad Caliph to convert to Islam in exchange for assistance against his enemies
01lv TIL Starbucks was to be called Pequod, after a whaling ship from Moby-Dick, but this name was rejected by some of the co-founders. The company was instead named after the chief mate on the Pequod, Starbuck.
R7Nr6 TIL: The first food consumed on the Moon was Christian sacramental bread and wine by Buzz Aldrin. He kept it a secret due to lawsuits filed by American Atheists over the Genesis reading on Christmas 1968.