› added 12 years ago

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TIL that at the Vietnam Memorial Wall, M.I.A. soldiers are marked with a cross by their names, and if they are found, a circle is circumscribed around the cross. To this day, the memorial has no circles.

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yVbZw TIL that from year to year, winds and air pressure patterns change, causing different forces to act on the solid Earth. During El Niño years, for example, the rotation of the Earth may slow ever so slightly because of stronger winds, increasing the length of a day by a fraction of a millisecond
nWNwW TIL in ancient Babylon, they worshiped the god Marduk via his statue. Enemy rulers who defeated Babylon would often take the statue. All five kings known to have taken the statue of Marduk from Babylon died violently at the hands of their own family members
rNdbM TIL that the US government runs an official dad joke database
v1VRL TIL the first Asian Americans to fight on behalf of the US were Filipinos, referred to by General Andrew Jackson as "Manilamen" during the War of 1812. They were from a small fishing town called Saint Malo in Louisiana, which is also the first Filipino Settlement in the US.
N74NJ TIL: Of the United States' 2.9 million female high school athletes, only 3% are cheerleaders, yet cheerleading accounts for nearly 65% of all catastrophic injuries in girls' high school athletics and carries the highest rate of catastrophic injuries in sports.