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TIL Mount Everest was named by Andrew Waugh, George Everest sucessor. George Everest protested that the natives couldn't pronounce it and that it couldn't be written in Hindi, but the Royal Geographical Society named it Everest anyway despite his objections

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njkd TIL Dogs can be trained to drive specially modified cars, more specifically; Mini Coopers.
neyeb TIL During the 1930’s IBM created a census for Nazi Germany identifying Jews, Gypsies and other ethnic groups by their nationality, gender and occupation which helped the regime significantly to organize and slaughter millions of innocent lives.
4xZN TIL Phones have an asterisk and pound sign because when Bell Labs designed the first touch-tone phone, their system had two tones which were not assigned values. So, they threw in * and #.
7rE1b TIL John Ratzenberger is the only actor to voice a character in every Pixar film
aw649 TIL Black GIs coming to wartime Britain found a relatively liberal attitude to segregation. They still weren't allowed to mix with American whites, but had no restriction on mixing with British whites.