› added 7 years ago

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TIL instead of providing famine relief, most of Live Aid's money went to funding an Ethiopian Dictator

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5VWZR TIL that before phones had full keyboards, users used a "multi-tap" text entry system in which pressing a numeric key several times would produce a letter
LQgOp TIL about the Mongolian "Dzud" of 2009-2010 that killed 22% of their livestock and doubled the price of meat.
ND6 TIL that from the 1940s Sunbeam produced several models of toasters that could sense the heat passing through the toast, meaning that regardless of the color of the bread (white or wholemeal) and the initial temperature of the bread (even frozen), the bread would always be toasted to the same degree
BrxBD TIL the first ever photocopier, the Xerox 914, caught fire so frequently that a “scorch eliminator”, asmall fire extinguisher, was provided with the copier.
pYA44 TIL about the tapetum lucidum of Arctic reindeer eyes, which changes color from gold in summer to blue in winter to improve their vision during times of continuous darkness, and perhaps enable them to better spot predators. They can also see within the ultraviolet range.