› added 5 years ago

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TIL that German renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer's father came from Hungary and was originally named Albrecht Ajtósi, and since Ajtósi means "doormaker", Dürer (originally spelled Türer) is the German translation of that name in Nuremburg dialect.

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5VDVr TIL about Manhattanhenge - a phenomenon where the sun sinks (or rises) directly between the grid of Manhattans skyline
LBEr TIL In early 1943, an underground Jewish resistance was formed at Treblinka, a Nazi concentration camp. Some 700 Jews launched the uprising in August 1943. Only 200 managed to escape the camp and only 70 are known to have made it until the end of the war. Treblinka was closed after the uprising.
rRQXM TIL that weapons manufacturer Remington produces an 8-gauge shotgun called the Master Blaster. It's classified as an "industrial tool" rather than a firearm, being used to blast away built-up materials within rotary kilns from a distance.
awX09 TIL that days before "Superman III" was going to start shooting, the director Richard Lester begged Christoper Reeves to return to his role as Superman, to save the movie from the producer's new choice for the role, Tony Danza.
P1ZgL TIL that photosynthesis doesn't recycle CO₂ into oxygen, the oxygen actually comes from water. Plants break down water (H₂O) to consume the hydrogen necessary to make sugar, and release the oxygen. The CO₂ is never broken down, plants just use it as a building block to make larger carbon compounds.