› added 1 year ago

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TIL: NPR history department compiled a list of 1800s American slang which includes, "Shoddyocracy" = people who got rich selling bad products, "Wake snakes" = get into trouble, "Bottom fact" = undisputed fact, and "Chicagoed" = to be beaten badly.

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VMK1Z TIL until 1929, less than 100 years ago, man didn't know there were other galaxies outside of the Milky Way. Edwin Hubble and his "computer", a woman named Henrietta Leavitt calculated stars called cepheids could accurately measure long distances, proving the Andromeda "nebula" was a separate galaxy
dDZJ7 TIL that a group of crows is called a murder.
GbMG TIL the Great Sphinx was so named about 2000 years after its construction. What name the creators called their statue is unknown and there are no inscriptions anywhere describing its construction or original purpose.
dnLr TIL in 2001 four Swedish teenagers were convicted of treason after they assaulted King Carl XVI Gustaf with a cream-cake. The ringleader was fined 100 days’ income; the others were fined 80 days’ income
7rvQL TIL that due to logging and grazing, the percent of the US state of Vermont covered by forest was just 30% in 1870. Today, that figure is around 78%!