› added 12 years ago

70

TIL Plato’s real name was Aristocles, ‘Plato’ was a nickname (roughly 'the broad’) derived from the width of his shoulders.

Read more www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk

via reddit.com

8aAVG TIL, Ball, the company everyone knows for making glass canning jars, has an aerospace division that built the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter - the largest telescopic instrument ever sent beyond Earth’s orbit.
1ae9W TIL that Stephen Colbert auditioned for the role of Screech on 'Saved by the Bell.'
D1bKp TIL that in the past, Harry Belafonte had been barred from the door of the world famous nightclub the Copacabana because of his color, and then later he’d be headlining the joint.
8aOnZ TIL Arborglyph is the carving of shapes and symbols into the bark of living trees. Derived from arbor ‘tree’; glyphein ‘to carve’. It was also mentioned in Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’; the love-frenzied Orlando declares he will carve every tree in the Forest of Arden.
vxnj TIL that Billiards directly contributed to the invention of plastic since ivory was too expensive for billiard balls