› added 12 years ago

147

TIL: The Pirate Bay once tried to purchase their own island in an attempt to create their own country without any copyright laws.

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P1ELG TIL the Vietnamese people celebrate progressing to another year of life—i.e., their birthday—together, on the first day of their new year, Tét, calculating Year 1 based on their actual birthdates.
4odb TIL that (almost) everybody is your 16th cousin
4Xjj6 TIL a tanner, John J. Loud, desiring a pen that could write on leather, invented the first ballpoint pen and patented it in 1888. This pen had a small steel ball which was placed so it could not fall out nor fall in but it still could rotate freely. Loud's invention then was not commercially viable.
WklXN TIL that, ideally, you need to use your fake Christmas tree for 20 years to make it outweigh the minimal environmental damage done by chopping down a real tree every year. Production and disposal of plastic and steel trees is worse for the environment, and real trees are typically recycled.
0gOv TIL that the current heir to the former Ottoman Empire, Bayezid Osman, is a US citizen, WWII Veteran, and lives in New York City where he worked as a librarian before retiring. He is 89.