› added 7 years ago

431

TIL that Platypuses and their cousins the Echidna do not have stomachs.

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via reddit.com

ZmmB TIL that the ampersand (&) was once the last letter of the alphabet. In latin the & was called “per se”. When reciting the alphabet people would say, “X, Y, Z and per se”. That last bit (“and per se”) eventually ran together to create the word, “ampersand”
l7jV1 TIL that the first fax line in the world was established 11 years before the first phone line.
vonR TIL Obi-Wan Kenobi’s home planet is called “Stewjon” because Jon Stewart asked George Lucas what it was and Lucas made it that as a joke.
yQOAX TIL born in 1779 into a family plagued by severe mental illness, Peter Roget's childhood was dominated by the depression and misery of those around him. In an effort to cope, he developed a compulsion for making lists. His lifelong passion culminated in the publication of Roget's Thesaurus in 1852.
Dx6D TIL “step on a crack, break your mothers back” was originally the more offensive “step on a crack, turn your mother black”