› added 11 years ago

118

TIL that Groupon is trying to take the name GNOME, a registered trademark, from the Open Source Linux Desktop environment of the same name that’s been around for almost two decades for a proprietary app.

Read more gnome.org

via reddit.com

D1y1V TIL from 1917 to 1918 British Intelligence paid an Italian journalist the modern equivalent of £6,000 (US$ 8,290) per week to keep up the pro-war campaigning. The cash got him a start in politics, and was also allegedly lavished on his many mistresses. The journalist was 34-year-old Benito Mussolini
69bLJ TIL that in 1971, three off-duty teenage British soldiers were lured from a Belfast pub and executed by the IRA. The outrage led to protests, a political crisis, and the UK raising the army deployment age to 18.
dDwlj TIL that in Toy-story, the characters name is actually “Buzz light year not Buzz light gear”
E1Apw TIL that US and British colonization of remote islands was driven by demand for bird poop used as fertilizer and in manufacture of gun powder.
j4gM TIL Richard Feynman was arrested while working on the Manhattan Project for playing pranks on military guards using a hole in the security fence. And safe-cracking.