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"A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man, who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet." TERRY PRATCHETT
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The Curie family is the most Nobel awarded family in history.
Pierre and Marie Curie won a chemistry Nobel Prize.
Of their two children, Irène and Ève, Irène shared a chemistry Nobel with her husband. Ève's husband won a Nobel Peace Prize.
Ève merely won a National Book Award.
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The Spanish village of Trasmoz was officially cursed and excommunicated by the Pope in 1511 for witchcraft. Neither the curse nor the excommunication have ever been lifted.
Trasmoz now crowns the woman who has best served the community "witch of the year".
Image: Juanje 2712.
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According to a study from the University of Vienna, you not only look like your dog, you look like your car.
580
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Dinosaurs were likely capable of dreaming.
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On the day of South Korea's university entrance exams, the entire country goes quiet.
Shops close, construction stops, and planes are grounded - so that students can focus on their exams.
Students that are late can even get a police escort to make sure they make it in time.
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People think about you more than you think they do - but they also like you more than you think they do.
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In a UK supermarket, if a salad is described as ‘washed’ that usually means washed in a chlorine rinse.
Dfrg.msc, CC BY-SA 3.0
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The term ‘First World War’ was coined by the Times correspondent Charles à Court Repington in his diary entry for 10 September 1918, before the war had ended. He thought the term could be used as a warning for future generations.
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In 1924, an elaborate tunnel was accidentally found under a street in Washington, D.C. Despite theories that it was a lair of bootleggers or ‘Teuton war spies’, the tunnel was dug by the Smithsonian entomologist Harrison G. Dyar, who just liked to dig tunnels in his spare time.
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When correctly viewed, everything is lewd. TOM LEHRER
587
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People with imposter syndrome are actually better at their jobs than people without imposter syndrome.
588
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The oldest surviving British joke dates to the 10th century. It goes:
Q: What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?
A: A key
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In 1982, Key West in Florida declared itself independent of the United States.
After declaring itself independent, the newly formed Conch Republic declared war on the US, surrendered one minute later, and promptly requested one billion dollars in foreign aid from the US.
590
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Cats have object permanence.
591
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50% of Facebook Messenger's voice traffic comes from Cambodian users because the Khmer language is so difficult to type.
592
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The man who voiced Tigger in Winnie the Pooh also invented the first artificial heart.
593
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Word of the day: STRUTHIOUS - ostrich-like, used to describe someone who keeps their head in the sand and whose only response to a problem is "problem? what problem?"
594
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Newfoundland, Canada is home to the small town of Dildo.
In 2019, a porn website offered to run free advertising to support tourism to the town.
(Image: Jcmurphy; CC BY-SA.)
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The heat in pepper comes from piperine, a compound that breaks down in contact with light (which is why you should store pepper in the cupboard.
Image: smial (FAL or GFDL 1.2)
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Beatrix Potter may have borrowed some her most famous characters' names from the gravestones in Brompton cemetery near where she grew up. Peter Rabbett, Mr McGregor, Jeremiah Fisher, Mr Nutkins, Mr Brock and Mr Tod are all buried there.
Image: CGPGrey.com, CC BY 2.0
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If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.
EMERSON M. PUGH
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Many common nicknames beginning with ‘N’ came about from affectionate phrases where ‘mine’ was used before the first name. So, ‘mine Edward’ gave rise to ‘my Nedward’ and, eventually, to ‘Ned’; and ‘mine Eleanor’ became ‘Nell’.
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During the Crimean War, the inventor of the saxophone Adolphe Sax had an idea for a cannon that would be able to demolish a whole city by firing a 10-metre-wide shot weighing 550 tons. The unrealised weapon was to be called Saxocannon.
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Researchers at the University of Glasgow have created a phone that your dog can use to contact you.
@qikipedia
A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
linktr.ee/TheQIElves