› added 8 months ago

70

TIL that the word "dude" was first used in the late 1800s as a term of mockery for young men who were overly concerned with keeping up with the latest fashions

Read more bbc.com

via reddit.com

78gbr TIL Montaigne's father, a wealthy french noble, had his son live with a family of peasants until the age of 3 so he would learn their life conditions. He then had everyone speak latin to him so it was his first language and taught him greek though games and activities instead of studying books
DQKpD TIL that the movie character Raymond from the Academy Award winning movie Rain man was based on real life savant, Kim Peek. He could simultaneously read the left side and right side pages of a book at the same time and had complete memory of over 12,000 books.
ne8BY TIL that during the 1918 influenza epidemic, volunteers in Seattle made 260,000 face masks in three days
Yn8r TIL there is a gang of Serbian thieves named The Pink Panthers who have pulled off Mission Impossible styled heists netting over EUR 300 Million in jewels. Their leader, Dragan Mikic, escaped prison by scaling a wall while the Pink Panthers shot at guards with machine guns
wojM8 TIL that in 2020, a bizarre new type of extinct deep-sea plesiosaur was discovered in Norway. Despite being 5 to 5.5 meters (16-18 ft) long, the marine reptile's head was tiny, being only 20 centimeters (8 inches) long. It also had a small brain, extremely large eyes, and likely ate squid.