› added 6 years ago

246

TIL of Justine Sacco who before a flight to South Africa in 2013 tweeted to her 170 followers "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just Kidding. I'm white!" By the time she landed she was the number one trending topic in the world and had been fired

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

9JaX TIL archive.org has a DMCA preservation exemption that LEGALLY allows download of 42gb of MAME ROMs
DJ0J TIL people originally used bread to erase pencil marks. In 1770, Edward Naine accidentally picked up a piece of rubber and found it to be very effective at erasing pencil marks, which prompted him to begin selling rubber erasers. Erasers exist to correct mistakes, and was invented because of one.
PYPeE TIL that beer mugs are not called "steins" in Germany. "Stein" is the German word for "stone." The English word "stein" probably comes from the German word "Steinzeug" which means "stoneware"—the type of pottery that cheap beer mugs are often made of.
X9ZR TIL In 1952 a double-decker bus was crossing London’s Tower Bridge when the process to close the gates failed. Driver Albert Gunter made a split-second decision to accelerate the bus, clearing a six-foot drop onto the other side. The passengers received only minor injuries and Gunter won a £10 bonus
OoWg4 TIL DeepSqueak software identifies rodent vocalizations using neural networks like those developed for self-driving cars. Researchers have found about 20 different calls, such as happy ones when anticipating a reward or playing with friends, or courtship when males are with females.