› added 5 years ago

137

TIL the "piano" means "soft" in Italian. The instrument's name is actually short for "pianoforte" (soft-loud) which is short for “gravicembalo col piano e forte” (harpsichord with soft and loud). Calling it "piano" defeats the purpose of its original name that meant to depict its dynamic sound.

Read more kitsappianolessons.com

via reddit.com

wLwgE TIL that in WWII, Allied statisticians working from the serial numbers of captured or destroyed German tanks’ components were more accurate than conventional espionage at estimating German tank production capacity.
bAlQ TIL of “Mr. Duging” - a man who was killed and eaten by wolves while hunting in Michigan in January of 1885. He had shot and killed 13 wolves and was found with a single round left in his Winchester rifle.
YpPkr TIL Switzerland accidentally invaded Liechtenstein in 2007 when 170 Swiss soldiers got lost in the rain. The Lichtenstein government accepted a Swiss apology, saying that "it has happened before" and "nobody really realised it"
aw6Yy TIL of the kākāpō—a nocturnal, flightless parrot that drags its face along the ground to navigate and has a mating ritual where the male digs a hole in a hill, lays down in it and makes loud noises all night until a female takes interest in him.
XEb4E TIL as of 2019, the quit rate of U.S. employees was at a record-breaking high of 2.3%, the highest it's been in 15 years. That number remained unchanged for 11 straight months, from June 2018 through May 2019, making the longest static period for the rate on record.