› added 8 years ago

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TIL that Microsoft bought all the rights to a Corbis stock photo called Bliss, better known as the Windows XP default wallpaper, for over $100k, making it the second largest amount of money ever paid to a photographer for a single photograph at the time of sale.

X0rLX TIL that the earliest settlers of Madagascar arrived in outrigger canoes from Borneo, about 4800 miles away. Estimates range from 350 BCE - 550 CE, making Madagascar one of the latest major landmasses to be settled by humans.
PYv7g TIL that Gilles de Rais, known for being a former ally of Joan of Arc who was executed for occultism and murdering 600 children, may have been the victim of a plot by the Catholic Church and/or the French state. No corpses were found at his estate and the prosecutor used the trial to seize his land.
b9v7Q TIL that after her husband was diagnosed with testicular cancer Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg attended class and took notes for both of them, typed her husband's dictated papers and cared for their daughter and her sick husband—all while making the Harvard Law Review.
jN0ZN TIL that inflation was so low in the United States in the 2010s that economists were actually becoming concerned that it might signal economic stagnation and a lack of economic control. Inflation was lower between 2010 and 2019 than any decade since the 1930s.
e0kWD TIL of the Lizardman Constant, which basically says that 4% of polling data is worthless due to people either being insane or deliberately corrupting your data