› added 4 years ago

43

TIL Lego copied their interlocking brick system from a British psychologist in 1940, and have failed to trademark it several times since.

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1g0V TIL in the 19th century the word gay referred to a woman who was a prostitute and a gay man was someone who slept with a lot of women.
kO8ZB TIL free-ranging cats kill billions of birds annually in the US. They are the the #1 anthropogenic cause of death for birds
xpbw TIL when the allies bombed Hamburg in July 1943, the unusually warm and dry weather conditions created “a vortex and whirling updraft of super-heated air which created a 1,500-foot-high tornado of fire, a totally unexpected effect.”
Jgy1 TIL that 6 of the 10 windiest US cities are in Massachusetts. And Chicago isn’t even in the top 100.
GYlrj TIL about Yo-Yo the bassett hound, kept by the master at Cambridge University Selwyn. Dogs are not allowed on the premises, so Yo-Yo has been officially classified as a "very large cat" so that the master can keep him on the campus.