› added 12 years ago

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TIL the book, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” was rejected by 121 publishers and then sold 5 million copies worldwide.

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50l8 TIL New Zealand Victoria Cross recepitant James Ward, won it for actions during a raid over Germany on 7 July 1941. When his aircraft was set on fire, Ward crawled out onto the wing, several thousand feet in the air, and smothered the flames out. The bomber made it back
KO0dw Today I learned the name "IKEA" is actually an acronym that stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. Ingvar Kamprad is the founder's name while Elmytrad is his farm name and Agunnaryd is his hometown.
p8aX8 TIL that Dan Shechtman was shamed for his ideas on quasicrystals. A Nobel laureate commented that 'there is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists'. In 2011 Dan Schechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of quasicrystals.
VBwvD TIL about Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) who not only popularised the use of lower case Pi to denote the ratio of a circle's circumference to it's diameter, but was also the first to use "i" to denote the square root of -1. The constant "e", the base number in a natural logarithm is the Euler Number
x6adg TIL that Shonda Rhimes accidentally invented the term 'vajayjay' on Grey’s Anatomy to get around limits on network TV as to how often characters could use the word “vagina.”