› added 1 year ago

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Today I learned that the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, were second cousins. So they needed a papal dispensation for their marriage.

8eRP TIL That former Reddit co-owner Aaron Swartz persistently hacked into JSTOR, an on-line archive of academic journals, to open access to the public. His endeavors included hard-wiring himself into the MIT network to assign himself 2 ip addresses.
yQnVa TIL that The Nightmare Before Christmas has an official epilogue in rimes in the same style of the intro. It was published with the soundtrack cd and tells about Santa Claus going back after years to meet Jack again
xVGG7 TIL after WWII ended, Jewish people were forced to live for months in their concentration camps, in their camp uniforms and poorly insulated buildings, leading a US representative to conclude: "We appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them."
dD7X7 TIL: Earth Overshoot Day is the date when humanity has used up all the resources that the planet can regenerate in a year. In 2024 it falls on August 1. If the world consumed like Qatari citizens, Feb. 11; US citizens, March 14; Indonesian citizens, Nov. 24!
VMkoB TIL Malden Mills, Inventor of the Popular Polartec fleece fabric, burned down in a fire in 1995. Instead of taking the opportunity to save money and move operations, the owner kept paying all workers while they rebuilt. it cost the owner over $25 million.