› added 7 years ago

469

TIL that in the mid 1800s people believed that travelling by train could cause insanity due to the high speeds.

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ANDOB TIL Kayne sampled "Avril 14th" by Aphex Twin without permission and when Richard D James offered to re-record it for them, they replied ‘It's not yours, it's ours, and we're not even asking you any more.’
BrQrk TIL 89-year-old woman catalogued all the mail she gets from nonprofit fund-raisers. One year, she got 868 solicitations. Charities scrounging for donations send promotional notepads, calculators, magnifying glasses and other stuff. She collects it and gives it away -- to charity, of course.
AD4v4 TIL about the Carrington Event which destroyed huge parts of the world's electrical system at the time.
dym8 TIL J.R.R. Tolkien finished his own translation of Beowulf in 1926, but never published it. One of his sons edited and published it for him this year.
8aw9Z TIL the word "scotch" in hopscotch and butterscotch comes from the old French word "escocher", meaning to cut. In hopscotch we hop over "cuts" in the ground (it is an ancient game); butterscotch is a sheet of hard butter candy "scotched" into smaller pieces; it also led to the word "scratch"