› added 12 years ago

77

TIL that Dickens’ secular vision of Christmas resulted in many of the traditions that are employed today, including popularizing the phrase, “Merry Christmas.”

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

oBxMo TIL that the opening scene of Zoolander (the awards ceremony) was actually filmed during the commercial breaks at the real-life 2000 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards.
WMB4 TIL that 19/20th century rural farmers would connect telephones to barbed wire fencing, creating an autonomous, decentralized network
woK87 TIL that 51% of births are male because female fetuses are more likely to die during pregnancy
OoKnY TIL that trains on the Mauritania Railway are up to 3 km (1.9 mi) long, making them one of the longest and heaviest in the world. 200 to 210 cars are used to transport iron ore, though passengers are also occasionally transported.
GYrlN TIL the oldest known written complaint is from ancient Babylon written c. 1750 BC. In it, a customer named Nanni complains to the merchant Ea-Nasir about the low quality of his copper as well as him being rude to Nanni's servent who had to pass through enemy territory only to be refused a refund.