› added 7 years ago

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TIL that bilingual children appear to get a head start on empathy-related skills such as learning to take someone else’s perspective. This is because they have to follow social cues to figure out which language to use with which person and in what setting.

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oXJW TIL President Lincoln loved cats and once had them eat at the White House dining table during a formal dinner.
d84Nr TIL that the name "white rhino" came from a miscommunication: Englishmen mistook the Dutch word "wijde" (wide) for white. White rhinos and black rhinos are actually the same color, grey.
4Kbo TIL that Chernobyl is the Ukrainian word for wormwood. In the Book of Revelation the star Wormwood is connected to a event that is predicted to poison large numbers of people.Thus some people regard that prophecy has already come to pass.
QNxdE TIL binary was inspired by ancient Chinese philosophy, the I-Ching. The same text that provoked Confucius gave Leibniz the insight to develop binary encoding. 64 bits also encapsulates DNA encoding.
DbQJ TIL Monopoly was originally a game designed to warn against the power of landlords and how they could make money for essentially doing nothing. It was a warning against unbridled capitalism and the wealth inequality it creates.