› added 2 months ago

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TIL In 1986, two Pakistani brothers created the first IBM PC virus not as an attack, but to protect their medical software

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awkOZ TIL: The "tradition" of spending several months salary on an engagement ring was a marketing campaign created by De Beers in the 1930's. Before WWII, only 10% of engagement rings contained diamonds. By the end of the 20th Century, 80% did.
X0VW6 TIL Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn, also known as Yayōsu, was a Dutch navigator who became one of the first known Western samurai and the only Dutch samurai in history. He was an advisor and interpreter to the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu, and there is an area in Tokyo named after him.
D1LjJ TIL In a letter to the Emperor Theophilus, Jesus Christ was described as being 3 cubits, which is 4 feet, 6 inches tall (137 cm).
eK4 TIL that there used to be a company that you could use to print your business cards on beef jerky.
jkGQ TIL scientists have found that the perception of time varies as a function of mass & metabolic rate across species. Smaller animals w/ faster metabolisms can respond to visual stimuli at a faster rate b/c they perceive movements & events to unfold more slowly (like bullet dodging in the Matrix).