› added 12 years ago

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TIL That the Largest numerical denomination bill ever is 1 Milliard Hungarian Pengő (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) in 1946. It was only worth twenty cents US! Hyper-Inflation is rough.

d8bk8 TIL of the Future Library Project which includes 100 works of literature to remain unread and unpublished until 2114. A thousand trees were planed in 2014 to supply the paper for the anthologies of these works. Each year a new notable author is chosen, most recently Ocean Vuong.
v1ep7 TIL that using shm in phrases like "Rainforest Shmainforest" or "Rules Shmules" used to deride or dismiss a concept is called a "shm-reduplication" and is found in English, Yiddish, German, and Turkish speech
dGJr TIL of Sergeant Dipprasad Pun, a Gurkha soldier who single-handedly held his post against dozens of oncoming Taliban; after firing 250 machine gun rounds, 180 SA80 rounds, throwing 12 grenades and one claymore mine, 30 Taliban lay dead around him.
4XaKX TIL inmates at Riker's Island are paid $1 an hour to bury unclaimed bodies on Hart Island. I also learned that Hart Island is a place in NYC that used to house an insane asylum for women, city jails, and a "reformatory for vicious boys."
JYeWV TIL Invented around 1770, the basset horn was pitched a fourth lower than the traditional clarinet (F) and is described to have a rich tone. Mozart liked its sound so much that wrote multiples pieces specifically for his clarinetist friend. As the orchestra started to grow, it fell into obscurity