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TIL A Female Scientist Defined the Greenhouse Effect In The 1800s, But Didn’t Get the Credit Due to Sexism

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V9vp Til: Zhou Youguang, the creator of the Chinese phonetic writing system (pinyin), is still alive at the age of 110
BrxPk TIL that the King of Prussia had a personal army of 3000 tall men and admitted, "The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiers—they are my weakness"
po4A TIL that Microsoft Encarta (original codename “Gandalf”) began as a pet project for Bill Gates around 1985 after being rejected by Encyclopaedia Britannica as a partner in making material available to PC users as a CD-ROM. Encarta’s eventual demise in 2009 was widely attributed to Wikipedia
Y774A TIL Simon Wells, the great-grandson of science-fiction author H. G. Wells, co-directed An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
vpAR TIL Acme City whistle founder Joseph Hudson accidentally dropped his violin and it shattered on the floor. As the violin broke, it emitted a unique warbling sound and led him to an idea to putting a pea in a whistle. Pea whistles went on to replace policemen’s ineffective rattles for communicating.