› added 9 years ago

86

TIL George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984, was an outspoken Democratic Socialist

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M7K90 TIL that A. A. Milne stopped writing Winnie the Pooh books partially because he was worried about the fame it brought his son, Christopher Robin Milne. They later became estranged because his son resented the books and the fame they brought him.
VBpv4 TIL that local time changes of as little as 2 minutes between cities was common before the adoption of standardized time zones, so railroad companies set up "comparative time zone" tables using Washington DC at noon as a benchmark for train scheduling.
GYPoJ TIL that in Taiwan, it is customary for condemned prisoners to leave a NT$500-$1000 (approx 17-$33 USD) tip for their executioner.
w1jW TIL A lab technician accidentally created a burst of nuclear fission and was exposed to radiation levels 7 times above lethal limits in under a second.
lWnr TIL google chrome records audio from your computer’s microphone whenever it’s open and sends it a private company to be analyzed… without asking for permission first