› added 3 years ago

78

TIL In Morocco in 1914 , an invading French force took a Berber encampment by surprise, kidnapping two of the Berber leader's wives. The Berbers counterattacked and annihilated the French force, and later exchanged the dead body of the French leader for the two wives

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

JYovQ TIL that the name "quark" for subatomic particles was inspired by the book Finnegans Wake. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann coined the term after seeing the following passage in the book: ‘Three quarks for Muster Mark!’.
9gxM TIL Ben Franklin’s brother would not print any of 16-year-old Ben’s letters at the newspaper he published, so Ben invented a pseudonym, the widow Mrs. Silence Dogood. Readers thought she was a charming woman and several offered to marry her.
6kOX TIL the NFL has no written rule against female players; women would in fact be allowed if they met the league’s eligibility requirements.
gMXA7 TIL that the phrase “don’t wear white after Labor Day.” Was just one of dozens of rules set buy high society women defining “old money” from “new money” as more and more people became millionaires after the civil war in the late 1800’s.
VMjGG TIL an Australian man suffered a sudden and severe form of meningitis at age 29, resulting in a 420-day coma, brain damage, paralysis and later death. The meningitis was caused by a parasite that entered his body 8 years prior after he ate a slug for a dare.