› added 7 months ago

20

TIL that use of the word "Piracy" to describe copyright infringement is actually centuries old.

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jNWlp TIL the Okinawa Islands were home to the Ryukyu Kingdom, which was culturally & politically distinct from Japan. Though its languages were related (though unintelligible to) Japanese, they were seen as a foreign people with a different culture, before it was annexed into Japan & mostly assimilated.
R8l8 TIL that the worlds longest hangover lasted 4 weeks after a Scotsman consumed 60 pints of beer.
XWxP TIL “eye of newt” in Macbeth is just a term for mustard seed
0wZNR TIL giant tortoises on whaling voyages were stored helplessly on their backs for up to six months before being killed and eaten. While alive, they drank gallons of water at a time and kept it in a special bladder, making a properly-butchered tortoise a source of cool, perfectly drinkable water.
Oo9EL TIL Control+Alt+Delete was used to log into Windows. According to Bill Gates, there was an option to make a single button for such a command, but the IBM keyboard designer didn’t want to give Microsoft a single button. So Microsoft decided to use “Ctrl+Alt+Del” as a way to log into Windows.