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Andrew

Thomas Becket is often mistakenly called "Thomas a Becket" after a medieval scribe hit the "a" key instead of "shift" on his phone keyboard

Surnames exist because medieval peasants would find a bread seller they really liked but already had a "Dave" in their phone, so they put the new one in as "Dave Baker"

follow me for more history facts

In the eleventh century, the easiest way to look up your friends' birthdays was on Domesdaybook

In 1770, Wolfgang von Kempelen claimed to have built the world's first chess computer, however it eventually turned out that the machine was using humans to make moves via the AWS Mechanical Turk API

Leap years exist because of a miscalculation by Pope Gregory XIII, who wanted to align the calendar and the Earth's orbit. The rockets he used were slightly too powerful and the orbit ended up almost a quarter of a day too long.

The American Revolutionary War ended on July 4, 1776, when Horatio Gates managed to upload a computer virus to the British mothership

Panic broke out in 1938 after many listeners mistook the radio broadcast of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds for news coverage of real events

The iconic lean was added to the Tower of Pisa partway through construction, after Pope Clement III demanded that the swimming pool on the top floor should have a shallow end

The first time machine was invented by Nikola Tesla in 1891, and patented by Thomas Edison in 1889

Upon its completion in 1931, the Empire State Building was the newest building in the world

Sir Walter Raleigh was executed for treason in 1618, after placing his cloak across an open manhole so the King walked over it and fell in

Following the invention of the horseless carriage, most family homes had a drawer full of unused, proprietary horses they refused to throw away just in case they needed them for something

The first human to reach the Earth's magnetic south pole was a caveman in 779021 BCE, who happened to be standing in the right place during the Brunhes–Matuyama geo-magnetic reversal

In 1912, the RMS Titanic was found with a large hole in the side, surrounded by water, but no knife was ever found. How is this possible?

Athletes in the ancient Greek Olympics were required to compete in the nude to boost ratings

Everybody remembers the story of the Tacoma Narrows bridge because it resonates so much

A series of unfavorable reviews by secret shoppers working for a customer affairs magazine in the late 16th century led to England's infamous Which? Trials

Nelson Mandela died in prison in 1986

The ISS is the only man-made structure that can be seen from space

BBC Television Service launched on November 2, 1936. The first programme shown on the new channel was Points Of View

The "en passent" rule was added to chess in the 16th century to prevent players from advancing a pawn past all the defending pawns and then passing the ball to them

@andrewt what has prompted this stream of blether?

@christianp I accidentally hit the "a" key instead of shift

@andrewt Babbage abandoned the Difference Engine in favour of the Analytical Engine in the hopes it would be powerful enough to run Lovelace's new program, Doom.

@andrewt Upon my birth in 199X, I was the youngest person in the world

@ozzelot @andrewt Me also, though in a different year - what a coincidence!

@andrewt One of the first things standardised in the metrification process in 18th-century France was the size of paper, which led directly to the invention of the guillotine.

@andrewt

This started a trend and up to this day buildings all over the World continue to fight for that title.

@andrewt Did you know Alcibiades invented the mobile phone to help communicate with troops in Peloponnesian Wars?

(Something I convinced an AI of after a few iterations of it getting its origins wrong)

@lerxst honestly you'd think they'd teach them about their own heritage in robot school