› added 8 years ago

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TIL the guy who managed Guinness Breweries in the 1950s went to a shooting party, where he missed his shot at a golden plover. In his defence, he argued it was the fastest game bird in Europe, but couldn’t find a reference book that proved it. That’s why he created the Guinness Book of Records.

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b6vDE TIL that the WSF-M weather satellite (newest of the weather satellites) is made by the Ball corporation. That would be the same Ball that also produces the canning jars.
R5D76 TIL in the Netherlands there is a chain of restaurants called 'Brownies & Downies'. The majority of the work force has Down syndrome (link in Dutch).
d8kDr TIL that there is an unusual instrument called the celeste/celesta which looks like a piano, but has metal plates like a xylophone, instead of strings, inside. This instrument is what gives the Nutcracker's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, and the Harry Potter theme, their distinct sound.
Y7QjW TIL William Thornton, who designed the US Capitol building, was called to Mt Vernon to treat a dying George Washington, only to arrive after the president had died. Thornton proposed ressurrecting the frozen corpse by heating it up, inflating the lungs, and infusing lamb's blood. His family declined
J1YJ8 TIL that the late third president of the Republic of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, once held a press conference to proclaim that he only had one wife, Lucy Kibaki after rumors that a prominent businesswoman, Mary Wambui, was his second one.