› added 4 days ago

1

TIL that pencil "lead" has never contained actual lead. The name is a holdover from the Roman era when they used a solid lead stylus called a "pencillus" to write.

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QJjXM TIL the 98th Illinois Regiment, part of General William T. Sherman's 23rd Army Corps, made their Corps battle flag from captured Confederate flags from the southern arsenal in Macon, Georgia, during Sherman's famous March to the Sea
4rGX TIL there was a popular Bitcoin alternative named Coinye West, until Kanye West sued for copyright infringement. In response, the company removed all direct references to West and replaced him with “an unnamed half-man half-fish hybrid.”
78YAL TIL that the test to measure the maneuverability in automobiles is called the elk test because it measure how successfully a vehicle handles avoiding large unexpected animals on Scandinavians roads.
l0MV TIL CIA spent $15 million to train a cat to spy on Russians. Just after it was released on its mission, the cat was killed by a car.
LQAnP TIL about Catherine King and Wayne Adams, who built a floating compound on the west coast of Vancouver Island from salvaged materials and lived on it for more than 30 years.