› added 4 months ago

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Til about kermitops, an extinct amphibian named after Kermit the Frog (the Muppets). The name means Kermit's face in ancient Greek.

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OoL8a TIL that the most successful pirate in history was a woman named Ching Shih
4XrMJ TIL, although the narrator begins Moby Dick with the famous opening, "Call me Ishmael," he is not stating his actual name. Rather he is briefly representing his back story with that of Ishmael from the book of Genesis, who was the cast-out son of Abraham born to a slave woman named Hagar.
Me65b TIL that the last Salem Witch Trial actually took place as late as 1878 - it was a civil court case in which Lucretia Brown accused Daniel Spofford of using mesmeric mental powers to harm her. Both followed the Christian Science religion, which includes a belief in mesmerism. The case was dismissed.
VM5B4 TIL that NASA lost the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft due to the lack of conversion of some data to metric system.
gEKL TIL Henry Ford once balked at paying $10,000 to General Electric for work done troubleshooting a generator, and asked for an itemized bill. The engineer who performed the work, Charles Steinmetz, sent this: “Making chalk mark on generator, $1. Knowing where to make mark, $9,999.” Ford paid the bill.