› added 1 month ago

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TIL about Genericide - where a trademark is lost because the trademarked term becomes the generic name for the item so it can't be copyrighted; this happened to "escalator" where it lost its copyright when it became the common term for any kind of moving stairs.

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wLJy1 TIL each soldier in the British army was rationed 3 sheets of toilet paper per day in WW2. American soldiers were rationed to 22,5 sheets per day.
BgEnK TIL Mexico is named after its capital Mexico City, not the other way around.
E6np TIL the German word for ‘birth control pill’ is 'antibabypille’
5YxnB TIL about Nikolai Pavlenko, a Soviet forger who ran a real but unauthorized construction organization in USSR. Since it was more efficient than the state ones, he was charged with undermining USSR by running an efficient organization.
P1KAE TIL that the Pistol Shrimp, a small creature that can snap its claw so fast, it creates a bubble hot enough to produce light and temperatures similar to the sun's surface, stunning or killing its prey with the shockwave