› added 11 years ago

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TIL Donald Crowhurst committed suicide after attempting to fake a solo circumnavigation of the globe. His decent into insanity while alone at sea for 8 months was captured in the chilling ships logs he left behind.

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nebw9 TIL about 'the Croissant', a linguistic transitional zone in the centre of France that lies between the Langue d'oil dialects of the north, and the Langue d'oc dialects of the south. Its name derives from the zone's contours resembling a croissant.
8aw9Z TIL the word "scotch" in hopscotch and butterscotch comes from the old French word "escocher", meaning to cut. In hopscotch we hop over "cuts" in the ground (it is an ancient game); butterscotch is a sheet of hard butter candy "scotched" into smaller pieces; it also led to the word "scratch"
a8MXo TIL that creator of Wonder Woman was in a thruple that involved his first wife and his student. They were heavily into bondage which inspired early iterations of the super heroine. Thruple lasted 22 years all the way to his death
OoYV6 TIL that weeks after JFK's assassination, Russian intelligence started circulating stories that the CIA was involved in the killing and even covertly financed an American book promoting that theory that was published within a year
v4m8 TIL that a bank worker fell asleep on his keyboard’s number 2 button, causing him to transfer 222,222,222 euros on a transfer that should’ve been worth only 62 euros. A co-worker was later sacked for not spotting the error.