› added 12 years ago

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TIL after Hawaiian King Kamehameha was hit in the head with a paddle by a frightened fisherman during a battle, he not only spared the man’s life but decreed a “Law of the Splintered Oar” protecting civilians in war that’s still part of Hawaii law in the State constitution.

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neK8d TIL that two pieces of the same type of metal in space can fuse together seamlessly if they come into contact with each other. Since there is literally nothing between them, the pieces don't "know" that they're separate. This is called Cold Welding.
p8j0b TIL: "The Havasupai people, which literally translates to 'people of the blue-green water,'” live near secluded waterfalls in the Grand Canyon. The tribal land is just outside the national park border. The water's striking turquoise color comes from calcium carbonate in the spring feeding the falls.
e0Ryn TIL That in the final year of Stephen Hawkings life his signature voice was actually running on a Raspberry Pi partially using code from the Super Nintendo emulator 'Higan'
QYd9 TIL Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, was given her name for two reasons. The hard consonant “X” allows her to recognize her name easier, and the name “Alexa” is also reminiscent of the Library of Alexandria; as the library was the “keeper of all knowledge”
X099j TIL that Uday, son of Saddam Hussein, once tortured members of the Iraqi national football team for losing 2-1 against Kazakhstan, caning their feet and beating them up.