› added 3 years ago

129

TIL that 100's of years ago scribes drew colorful ¶ ("pilcrows") to mark new paragraphs. They'd leave blank spaces for the ¶'s then switch inks and add them. They would often miss some so readers evolved to interpret a blank space (indent) as the start of a new paragraph. Voila.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

6EDJ8 TIL Mice on Earth may like running in wheels, but mice in space apparently take advantage of the microgravity to run in circles by bouncing off the walls.
QNGkL TIL Beatle historians consider their infamous "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" to be the song that broke them up, as it showed that a Lennon-McCartney song was always picked to be recorded over a George Harrison song, no matter the quality of the Harrison song
b9W1N TIL Homosexual men in England used a unique cant slang, Polari, to communicate, as being homosexual was a crime punishable by prison and mental institutions.
yVWv8 TIL that the top mathematics student at Cambridge University is known as the Senior Wrangler. In 1880 J. J. Thomson was so confident he was #1 that he sent his servant to find out how others had ranked. When Thomson asked "Who was Second Wrangler?", he was told "You were, sir"; Joseph Larmor was #1.
YjQv TIL Iowa and Montana will revoke your driver’s license if you can’t pay back student loans