› added 5 years ago

90

TIL the husband of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Daniel Westling, was born on the day her father, King Gustav XVI, ascended the throne.

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w4M6 TIL that J. R. R. Tolkien might have gotten the idea for a ring that makes its wearer invisible from an ancient, Greek story told by one of Plato’s students about a shepherd discovering such a ring on a cadaver in a cave, and then using it to kill his king
neJpd TIL William Shockley, a co-inventor of the transistor, decided to cease silicon-based research. The remaining researchers disagreed with him and went on to form Intel, AMD and National Semiconductor.
O1GL TIL that the word “metaphysics” literally means “after physics”. An early editor of Aristotle’s works needed a placeholder name for the untitled philosophical book that came after the the book he called Physics.
R7MW9 TIL that Aladdin, one of the most iconic characters from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, was Chinese
9wlyM TIL the Pāli/Sanskrit word “muditā” - the Buddhist practice of deriving pleasure from the well-being of others. Also known as compersion, sympathetic joy, or vicarious joy, muditā is the opposite of jealousy.