› added 10 years ago

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TIL Mika Brzezinski, an MSNBC News Anchor, refused to read a report about Paris Hilton’s release from jail on National Television and ranking it over a story on the Iraq War. Then after repeatingly being pressured to do the story, she attempted to light the script on fire on the air.

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9YGJM TIL that the letter K was effectively dropped from the Welsh language in the late 1500s, simply because the (English) printers didn't have enough Ks for the newly translated Welsh New Testament; the translator instructed them to use Cs instead and the convention stuck.
PZke TIL that Lolita, the killer whale, has been kept in Miami Seaquarium since 1970. The orca is 20 ft long, and her tank measures 60 by 80 ft by 20 ft deep. Her only company for 10 years was Hugo, who died after a brain aneurysm caused by repeatedly banging his head on the tank windows.
WknG4 TIL that George Newhall and Tom Yohe, co-creators of the "School House Rock" series of educational short songs, produced a similar series for NBC in 1978 called "The Metric Marvels" to teach kids about the metric system in support of the US' short-lived transition to metric.
Wnk9 TIL that Democrats were red and Republicans were blue until the year 2000
yQ4re TIL that Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel prize winning philosopher, suffered a bad trip after using Mescaline, in which he thought he was menaced by sea creatures. For years following this, he consistently believed that he was being followed by lobsters.