› added 5 years ago

159

TIL that In 2011, S.N.C.F., the French state railway company, apologized to victims of the Holocaust after lawmakers in the United States moved to block it from winning contracts there if the firm did not acknowledge its role in the shipping of Jews to death camps.

Read more nytimes.com

via reddit.com

Yp60B TIL of the "Elfstedentocht" (eleven city tour). An ice skating tour held on natural ice in the province of Frisia. It visits all 11 historical towns in Frisia and spans almost 200 km. It can only take place when the weather is favorable and has only taken place 15 times since the first one in 1909.
JNQ TIL that July 10th is Nikola Tesla Day
yVjVX TIL that people used to think your kidneys controlled your conscience, and several Bible verses refer to God inspecting people’s kidneys.
OGDQ7 TIL that Wincanton, in Somerset, UK is twinned with Ankh-Morpork--a fictitious town from Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series of books--and that the town is the first to name streets after their fictional equivalents.
BJoe TIL researchers from Cornell University are using computational models to generate rap lyrics. “In terms of quantitative rhyme density, the produced lyrics outperform best human rappers by 21%”.