› added 4 years ago

206

TIL that Shakespeare’s scripts contain over 2200 never-before-seen words—a diverse collection of loan-words from foreign languages, compound words from existing English terms, nouns turned into verbs, and creatively applied prefixes—many of which have entered into everyday language.

Read more mentalfloss.com

via reddit.com

8a1aP TIL about Parkinson’s Law, which states that work expands to fill the time allotted. At the time used to explain the growth of bureaucracy in organizations, it helps understand today why so many projects and team fail to be productive.
RAO6 TIL that medal of honor recipient Thomas Baker asked to left behind during a Japanese Counter Attack on Saipan due to being wounded. He only asked for 1 pistol with 8 bullets. After returning the US army found his corpse with 8 dead Japanese.
O9n4 TIL there is an animal that looks like a gremlin with a “long, bony, witch-like middle finger” called an Aye Aye. These gentle, harmless animals are killed due to local superstition that aye-ayes are harbingers of death, and if an aye-aye points its middle finger at you, it’s a death sentence.
jNJZM TIL Ferdinand Foch (Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in WWI) said of the Treaty of Versailles : "This is not a peace treaty. This is an armistice for twenty years." World War II started 20 years and 64 days later.
4X65J TIL of Rudloe Manor, the UK's own Area 51. For years, the RAF’s secret service worked in underground tunnels and chambers beneath the manor on UFO investigations. It's existence was consistently denied by the MOD, but in 2007, during a release of declassified files, it was finally confirmed.