› added 13 years ago

235

TIL that Edward James Olmos was contacted about being the captain of the Enterprise for The Next Generation but turned it down, only to become the captain of another famous ship later on.

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JYvEB TIL Atatürk, the founder of Turkey, was a critic of the Armenean genocide that Turkey today denies, writing "millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse from their homes and massacre".
oWjA TIL a Rhode Island woman attempted to sue her husband for slander after he called her a whore in a crowded restaurant. After being presented evidence, the judge officially ruled that the husband’s statement was accurate. She then appealed to the Supreme Court, only to have that judge agree as well.
X0mP8 TIL bamboo can grow at a rate of approx. 1m/3ft in just 24 hours
p8XkA TIL that Ritz crackers were first released during the Great Depression, choosing the name ‘Ritz’ (as in the Ritz hotels) so people would perceive the crackers as high class and fancy, but available at an affordable price
R7kQa TIL that the Babylonians actually discovered Trigonometry about 1,500 years before the Greeks. Not only were their tables more accurate because of their base-60 numerical system (which made thirds more accurate), but their approach using ratios is something relatively novel to us, today.