› added 11 years ago

102

TIL a Japanese translator was stabbed to death because he translated “The Satanic Verses”, a novel by Salman Rushdie.

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4X9xb TIL that the actor who plays Donald Malarkey in Band of Brothers is also the voice of Steve Smith in American Dad.
0wJdR TIL the pocket calculator, patented in 1967, was one of the earliest uses of rechargable batteries. One of the creators, Jerry Merryman, saw it not just as a pocket calculator, but as an "electionic revolution," bringing buttons, thermal printing, and rechargable batteries to the forefront.
1oLX TIL Norwegian soldiers of the Telemark Battalion fighting in Afghanistan sometimes cried ‘To Valhalla, Oorah!’
oBy7R TIL there's a fetish term and concept for people who are aroused by wearing clothing intended for their own gender (men wearing men's clothes, or women wearing women's clothing)
x69R1 TIL BBC developed a written form for West African Pidgin. Pidgin has 75 million speakers in West Africa but did not have a standard written form prior to this. E.g. ,"Wen be Eid al-Fitr and how dem dey decide di date?"