› added 12 years ago

120

TIL that there’s 21x as many words which break the “i before e, except after c”-rule as obey it

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J1jGQ TIL that in 2017, a 5th grade boy’s basketball team was told to remove two girls from their team, or forfeit the rest of the season. The team unanimously decided to forfeit.
rRyrd TIL In 1964, a Swedish art gallery displayed 4 paintings by unknown artist Pierre Brassau. Every single art critic praised the ‘avant-garde’ work- except one, who said, ‘only an ape could have done this’. In fact it was all a hoax by a journalist and 'Brassau’ was actually a 4-year-old chimpanzee.
VMVZQ TIL The GPS (Global Positioning System) is owned by the U.S. Government and is operated by the U.S. Space Force.
Ro5l TIL George RR Martin despises fan fiction, saying that it is copyright infringement and a bad exercise for aspiring writers.
XENJ8 TIL that the Icelandic government banned the stationing of black American soldiers in Iceland during the Cold War so as to "protect Icelandic women and preserve a homogenous national body". After pressure from the US military, the ban was eventually lifted in the late 1960s.