› added 7 years ago

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TIL some slang words and phrases commonly used in the UK today originated 100 years ago in the trenches of WWI.

Read more bbc.co.uk

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0wjbj TIL light can propel spacecraft. Solar sails use radiation pressure exerted by sunlight to propel themselves in space, absorbing the momentum from incoming photons. Such technology has been theorized since the 1980s, and came true in 2010 with IKAROS, a small satellite.
RE46 TIL there is an area that has 10 hour lightning storms up to 260 days per year. The storms are so bright sailors use them for navigation.
rDad TIL: Kevin Smith quit smoking cigarettes in 2008 after taking up smoking cannabis after working with Seth Rogen on Zack and Miri Make a Porno.
RaRQ TIL People with little or no skill suffer from a false feeling of superiority, this “Dunning-Kruger effect” was originally noted by Charles Darwin and its modern proponents won a Nobel prize for its documentation.
woJY6 TIL that one of Portugal's most important writers was given the wrong surname at birth, being called by a local shrub instead of his family name.