More of what I learned

I recently wrote about a project that my wife and I started last year. The idea was to think about what we had learned each day, record it and discuss from time to time. I shared some interesting examples of nuggets of new knowledge …

Today I would like to share a further selection, again having filtered out the personal or anachronistic ones:

• King Herod’s 4th wife was called Doris.
• Turbo Pascal was a real problem to Microsoft and offered the first IDE.
• We have the kind of friends who accidentally buy a turkey.
• The highest waterfall in the world is Angel Falls.
• Bulls are castrated using a rubber band.
• Microsoft bought the company that developed Powerpoint in 1989.
• Paddington Bear was originally going to be from Africa.
• In WW2, black GIs were not allowed to marry their British girlfriends as it would be illegal in 30 of the 48 US states.
• It is bad luck to point at a rainbow.
• The band Mungo Jerry got their name from the name Mungojerrie in T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
• Reindeer hair is hollow so it insulates well.
• At blood donation, you now get an isotonic drink instead of water. This is the same as an energy drink, as used by athletes.