› added 5 years ago

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Today I learned that CNN has planned a doomsday video to air during the end of the world for the last major event on the channel

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via reddit.com

rNRw0 TIL that before exponential notation was invented, mathematicians used words to represent exponents. For instance, 2^8 had the name Zenzizenzizenzic, the word with the most Z's in the English language, which means "square of squares squaredly".
R7AA9 TIL a Dolphin had sexual relations with its trainer, given LSD, then it committed suicide as part of a NASA experiment.
OoaG1 TIL that we say "redhead" since red was the only relevant color word in Old and Middle English. Oranges arrived in England after 1300 AD and only became a color descriptor after 1540. Carrots arrived in 1530 but were purple and yellow at the time, as orange carrots were only popularized after 1600.
5YWP8 TIL about Francine Gottfried, a clerical worker on Wall Street whose curvaceous figure gave her international fame as 'Wall Street's Sweater Girl'. On September 19th 1968 over 5,000 spectators gathered to watch Gottfried walk to work. Trading came to a virtual halt and police shut down the road.
x6kyw TIL: James Blunt gave Weird Al Yankovic permission to parody his single "You're Beautiful." But after Yankovic recorded "You're Pitiful," Blunt's record label refused to let it be commercially released. Yankovic didn't include it on his album. Instead, he released it as a free digital download.