› added 10 years ago

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TIL Oscar the Grouch (SESAME STREET) used to be orange. Jim Henson decided to make him green before the second season of Sesame Street. How did Oscar explain the color change? He said he went on vacation to the very damp Swamp Mushy Muddy and turned green overnight.

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GYbkg TIL that most of the states in the US are shaped, at least in part, by having borders along rivers. Only five of the 50 states lack any river borders: Colorado, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and Hawaii.
BXpr TIL that ironically, Reading Rainbow was actually canceled BECAUSE of No Child Left Behind.
GYQpN TIL about Ishi, the last native American Yahi. Due to Yahi customs a person may not speak his name until formally introduced by another Yahi. When asked for his name he'd say "I have none, because there were no people to name me." Ishi is the name given by a anthropologist, translated as "man".
5b1p TIL John Lasseter was fired from Disney after pitching a computer animated version of The Brave Little Toaster. He would later go on to work for Pixar and directed a similar and even more successful movie, Toy Story.
nW4Br TIL Wachovia Bank, a unit of Wells Fargo & Co, paid $160M in 2010 to settle drug money probe. The systematic failure by Wachovia to maintain effective anti-money laundering controls had led to more than $400B in unmonitored funds being channeled to accounts at the bank between 2004 & 2007.