Merge pull request #1092 from christopherphan/name-explain

Add explanation of git's name

Author: erinmgraham

episodes/01-basics.md

@@ -76,6 +76,14 @@ are *distributed*, meaning that they do not need a centralized server to host th
 These modern systems also include powerful merging tools that make it possible for multiple authors to work on
 the same files concurrently.
 
+Git was created by Linus Torvalds in 2005 
+as an alternative to BitKeeper, one of the first distributed version control
+systems, to track changes in the Linux kernel.
+Torvalds provided several explanations of the name, of varying degrees of
+politeness, which are enumerated in the 
+[project's README](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/README.md?plain=1#L55),
+including "Global Information Tacker" for when "you're in a good mood".
+
 For those interested, The Carpentries has a [Version Control with Mercurial](https://swcarpentry.github.io/hg-novice/) lesson (2013-2018), which provides additional context and historical perspective.
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