› added 11 years ago

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TIL Twitter owns the patent to the “pull to refresh” feature common on so many applications, but has vowed not to sue other companies that use the gesture, as part of a broader intellectual property detente.

AGXl TIL That when a trainer taught a killer whale to swim to music, the killer whale then effectively taught the trainer to never play the same music twice, or else it would refuse to swim.
epZlJ TIL that in 1958, the U.S. accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb on a South Carolina family's backyard. While it wasn’t armed with a nuclear warhead, the conventional explosives detonated, leaving a large crater and damaging the house. Amazingly, no one was killed in what became known as the Mars
VMVED TIL that Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in 1919 (awarded in 1915), after the British empire fired on a gathering of unarmed men, women and children in Amritsar, India (Jallianwala Bagh massacre) which resulted in the death of over a 1000 civilians.
QNWrE TIL Slaves in ancient Rome would often sleep on the same bedroom as their masters, or right outside. The lack of privacy was such that Romans would joke about slaves having their ears glued to the door and masturbating to their masters having sex
ADgVB TIL There is a tongue-in-cheek parody of lists made of scientists who 'dissent from Darwinism' called "Project Steve." It only accepts signatures from scientists named "Steve" and has beat out all lists of creation-believing scientists.