› added 6 years ago

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TIL that before WWI Kaiser Wilhelm tried to impress Queen Wilhelmina of Holland by telling her "My guards are seven feet tall and yours are only shoulder-high to them." her reply was, "Quite true, Your Majesty, your guards are seven feet tall. But when we open our dikes, the water is ten feet deep!"

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ZMWG TIL In 2008, Doritos beamed a 30 second advertisement towards a planetary system 42 light years away.
R694 TIL in 1846, Albert Tirrell became the first to successfully use sleepwalking as a defense for murder and arson in the United States.
YmGr TIL that Harlan Ellison was once hired to write for Disney. Roy O. Disney overheard him in the lunchroom impersonating Donald, Goofy and Mickey, joking about making an animated porno with Disney characters. After lunch he found a pink slip on his desk. He had been fired on his very first day.
yMkV TIL nearly 75 percent of all holders of bachelor’s degrees in STEM disciplines don’t have jobs in STEM occupations.
MeKx8 TIL that the fruit, orange, was named before the color, which was commonly referred to as “yellow-red.” Hence why people with orange hair are called “redheads” and not “orangeheads.”