› added 12 years ago

165

TIL that contrary to the popular myth, slaves did not build the great pyramid of Giza

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m14pM TIL after centuries of use in America there was an international effort to ban sign language. Educators from Europe wanted to force the deaf to try to focus on oral communication instead. Linguists rejected American Sign Language as a language until William Stokoe proved it had grammar in the 1960s.
J15jV TIL German has incredibly specific compound words for human experiences
PY9jO TIL about John Harrison, a self-taught, working class carpenter and clockmaker. He invented the maritime chronometer, which finally made sea travel safe and reliable.
x67XB TIL that during the construction of the Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico workers found a human skeleton. It was later identified as the body of a passenger that had been ejected from a passenger aircraft that had experienced decompression during an engine failure.
41Na TIL the term “junkie” comes from the fact that recreational heroin users in the early 1900s would collect and sell scrap metal to pay for their heroin.