› added 11 years ago

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TIL in 2006 the FBI convicted a crime family using evidence collected by remotely enabling the microphone on a cellphone. This is called a “roving bug.”

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xVOn0 TIL It's generally agreed that 10 power is the upper limit of hand-holdable binoculars. The higher the magnification, the greater the wobble. At some point, the wobble negates the increased resolution that magnification provides
BgEnK TIL Mexico is named after its capital Mexico City, not the other way around.
wLaP6 TIL about Nábrók or necropants … a pair of pants made from human skin worn by icelandic witches. It's unsure if they were a real thing or just folklore.
l70oG TIL of a mother named Kathleen Folbigg, who was imprisoned for 2 decades for murdering her 4 children. Later, she would be pardoned by the Governor after it was discovered that the deaths were instead due to an extremely rare genetic condition.
mxBGo TIL about crossed letters, they consist of two different sets of writing, one written horizontally and the other perpendicularly. This was done during the early days of the postal system in the 19th century to save on expensive postage charges and to save paper.