› added 9 years ago

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TIL that first widely spread computer virus, “Brain” was not malicious. It was made by two brothers from Pakistan, and even included their phone and address in the code so people could let them know they got it.

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GYKPG TIL about Frisland, a "phantom/imaginary" island off the coast of Greenland which, despite being nonexistent, appeared on virtually all of the maps of the North Atlantic from the 1560s through the 1660s.
8a9wZ TIL that an Indian woman defended her father from three gunmen that had broken into their home, and fought them off. She disarmed one, attacked him with an axe, then killed him with his own gun, before shooting and wounding another as he made his escape.
Y7Drv TIL some plants like kiwifruit, wild taro, pineapples have microscopic sharp crystalline needles called raphides.
Br1Vb TIL in 2016 an astronomer convinced Alaska Airlines to shift a flight time 25 minutes so it would pass through the path of totality for a solar eclipse. They even washed all the windows on the right side of the plane.
XE5rP TIL that immediately before his execution on January 31, Guy Fawkes (perpetrator of the gunpowder plot) fell from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of being hanged, drawn and quartered. His lifeless body was nevertheless quartered.