› added 4 years ago

57

TIL that the English word for "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, "alpha" and "beta". The biblical phrase, "alpha and omega", meaning "beginning and end", comes from the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet, "alpha" and "omega".

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

R441 TIL In 1575 Native Americans, converting to Catholicism, had brought the practice of smoking into churches during the liturgy. Tobacco smoke, in their traditions, evoked the spirits, so naturally they mixed their smoke into the liturgical incense.
pvMG TIL that in 1906, the Bronx Zoo exhibited a 23 y/o pigmy African man named Ota Benga in their Monkey House, alongside an orangutan. He was later released, where he shot himself in the heart to end his loneliness.
LQyov TIL LabCorp owns a fleet of planes and has the call sign SKYLAB
Ayln TIL King Mithradates of Pontus had a flock of ducks who consumed poisonous plants and didn’t die (thus making them useful for creating antidotes); however their blood, meat, and eggs could kill you if you ingested them
e0wQk TIL: Charlie Sheen's revelation that he was HIV-positive sparked an increase in testing equivalent to 7 World AIDs Days.