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TIL the walking-into-the-room-and-forgetting-why-you’re-there feeling is due to your brains way of categorizing memories.

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g9Y7 TIL that in 1971, Saddam Hussein imported 100,000 tons of grain treated with fungicidal mercury. The grain was intended for planting, but the Iraqis, unable to understand the English and Spanish warnings or the “skull and crossbones” image, baked it into bread. Hundreds died.
RZna TIL that facts don’t win arguments because of something called the ‘backfire effect’ in which “corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.” Since your friend knows you and your opinions well, he or she does not view you as an all-knowing source of information.
8evdL TIL the theory of atoms comes from ancient Greece in the 5th century BCE. Democritus of Abdera, named the building blocks of matter atomos, meaning literally “indivisible,” about 430 BCE.
d8W1K TIL that George Washington moved his slaves in and out of Pennsylvania every 6 months to avoid them taking advantage of a law that meant slaves residing in the state longer than half a year could claim freedom
N77J TIL a Pakistani diplomat was denied an Ambassadorship to Saudi Arabia because his name in Arabic meant “Biggest Cock”