› added 12 years ago

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TIL that “Hello” only came about in the 19th centuary and became popular chiefly due to the word being easy to hear on early telephones.

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b9D4N TIL there's a near perfectly preserved 17th Century Swedish galleon in a Stockholm museum
wxl8 TIL that in 1978 France rolled out a pre-World Wide Web online service (MiniTel) that gave it’s users access to online shopping, search engines, cybersex, message boards etc … France Telecom only retired the service in 2012 after 30 years and 800 000 units still in use.
mKOp TIL Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t properly form until the child reaches 3-5 years of age.
jNQAn TIL The year that Lord of the Rings author, J.R.R. Tolkien, died is rather unique. He died in 1973, that number may sound familiar: 1 ring to rule them all, 9 rings for men, 7 rings for the dwarves, and 3 rings for the elves!
OBd7 TIL that in ancient Rome various animals were trained to rape women.