› added 5 years ago

101

TIL that Velcro was invented after burrs kept getting stuck to George de Mestral's socks, so he put one under a microscope and got the idea for a "hook and loop" inspired closure method.

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epMGn Today i Learned about "Killer" Jim Miller, an outlaw who reportedly killed over 50 men. During his execution, Miller was reported to have shouted, "Let 'er rip!" and stepped voluntarily off his box to hang.
v45j TIL Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, who fought against the Soviets in the 1980s, was also against a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. He was assassinated two days before 9/11, after warning of a major terrorist attack set to happen in the United States.
16VaO TIL that “OK” is said to be the most widely spoken word in the world, having been adopted as a loanword in Spanish, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Russian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and others. However, the etymology of the word is uncertain.
NXMkM TIL that Chimpanzees can have "Down Syndrome" or trisomy 22
gZL8 TIL: in 1955, someone dropped a >600 year old plaster buddha statue… to discover the plaster was actually covering a solid gold statue.