› added 8 years ago

70

TIL 3M company name stands for “Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company” = 3M

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

kQGg TIL German has a word for an improvement that makes things worse: verschlimmbesserung
1aP1P TIL Bayer (The same one that makes Aspirin) discovered,produced, and sold Heroin in 1898.
4XAda TIL the Mediterranean had dried up and been refilled by Atlantic for at least 69 times due to the total close up and re-open of the Strait of Gibraltar. at its prime time, the Atlantic-Gibraltar waterfall was 1000 times bigger than Niagara.
LbR0 TIL that a solid 8 hour sleep is actually unnatural to us as a species. A 4 hour sleep, waking for 1-2 hours, followed by another 4 hour sleep is how we slept for the majority of evolution. The change to a solid 8 hour sleep was originally attributed to improvements in lighting and other things.
mOBo TIL j.K. Rowling has donated so much to charities that she is no longer a billionaire