› added 6 years ago

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TIL: NYC yellow cabs and livery cars have a 4.5-inch amber flasher (aka a "trouble light") on the rear. Its serves as a way to alert outsiders that they are feeling threatened. It's like their version of a silent alarm banks use.

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xVEww TIL that 18 century mathematician Carl Gauss knew he was ahead of his time, and would purposefully withhold huge mathematical discoveries so he didn’t have to waste his time arguing with everyone who wasn’t smart enough to understand it.
KZVR TIL that Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of Hades in Greek mythology, takes his name from the Greek word “kerberos”. Kerberos means “spotted”, which means Hades literally named his dog “Spot”.
OoRRg TIL In the US, if your scheduled arrival time to a destination is delayed by an airline (due to missteps on their part, such as overbooking), for more than 2 hours (domestic) or 4 hours (international), you are entitled to financial compensation of up to 400% of the one-way fare, capped at $1,550.
ne7kr TIL The term "rocket-propelled grenade", though frequently encountered, is a backronym of the "RPG" from the translation of Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт (Ruchnoy Protivotankoviy Granatomyot) Russian for "handheld anti-tank grenade launcher" and not based on a true literal translation.
M7Vob TIL that Mehmet II found bodies of about twenty thousand men, women, and children impaled by Vlad the Impaler when he entered Targoviste.