› added 7 years ago

263

TIL of the vestal virgins. A group of six women recruited at age six to tend the flame of the goddess vesta. Expected to serve for 30 yrs, if their viginity ever came into question they would be buried alive as punishment.

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mxrwx TIL that under Chinese occupation (which killed 1.2 million people), the Tibetan language is banned in Tibet
QNZjk TIL that in World War 2 Nazis used secret codes to communicate using a machine called the Enigma Machine which would use morse code but make it very, very difficult and there was a building in England where many people were recruited to work as decoders and it would take hours or days to solve.
grZr4 TIL in 1862 atmospheric rivers created a 40-day mega-storm in California that utterly destroyed a third of the state. Research shows that such a storm happens every 200 years.
EgOZ0 TIL that Teddy Roosevelt co-led an expedition to South America where he navigated a newly discovered river called the "River of Doubt"
7vPM TIL the Christmas tree in London’s Trafalgar Square had been given by the country of Norway every year since 1947. It is a token of appreciation for the friendship of the British people during World War II.