› added 8 years ago

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TIL: The word “weird” used to mean “having the power to control fate”, deriving from the proto-norse “wyrd” which roughly means “fate”.

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XEvV8 TIL a whale (188 decibels) is louder than the Space shuttle launching (160 decibels).
xVQ10 TIL In 1803, a group of Japanese fishermen encountered a strange boat containing a young woman described as beautiful and strange. She had red eyebrows, about 18 or 20 years old, at a height of 1.5 meters, with pale skin and red hair. The frightened fishermen returned her to the sea
Oorka TIL that Polaris, the famous north star at the tail end of the little dipper constellation, is actually 3 stars very close together that look like a single star
AQb7 TIL that during the runup to WW2 Chase Bank made $500K by selling Reichsmarks stolen from Jews that fled Germany to Nazi sympathizers in the US.
8a1NX TIL California is home to 91 of the 100 most expensive zip codes in America.