› added 5 years ago

312

TIL - When area codes were first introduced, they were set up so the highest populated areas would be the easiest to dial on a rotary phone. New York was 212, Los Angeles 213, Chicago 312, and Detroit 313.

9YWnr TIL that Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS church, and his brother Hyrum were shot to death by an angry mob while in prison in Carthage, Illinois. After being shot in the face, Hyrum exclaimed ā€œI’m a dead man, Joseph!ā€ Then Joseph was shot while trying to escape out of a second story window.
eown TIL DJ Carl Cox played the Millennium (1999 to 2000) on New Year’s Eve twice, by performing in Sydney, Australia and again in Hawaii after flying back over the International Date Line.
DQxjJ TIL that in the 2000 Paralympic games, Spain was stripped of its intellectually disabled basketball gold medal after it was revealed that only 2 of its 12 basketball players actually had an IQ below 75, the requirement to qualify. Intellectual disability would be abandoned until the 2012 Paralympics
p89J4 TIL that the word quarantine comes from an Italian variant of ‘quaranta giorni’, meaning forty days, which was the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague epidemic. They would fly this flag known as “Yellow Jack”.
ep4yE TIL Although surveys indicate people think running is bad for one's knees, research shows it's not, and is likely good for knees/joints.