› added 1 year ago

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TIL: Congress doesn't actually pass a law against child pornography until 1996.

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via reddit.com

oBMmo TIL Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite put into space, transmitted on 20.005 and 40.002 MHz which were detectable by amateur radio operators. After orbiting for about 3 weeks it's batteries had died. 2 months later it burned up falling back into the atmosphere kick-starting the space race.
9QGp TIL that a fabled Swedish Lesbian City was reported in Chinese news, causing Swedish tourism websites to crash following millions of hits from China.
W7gGo TIL the term "Siamese twins" comes from the twin conjoined brothers Chang and Eng Bunker who were born in Siam, now Thailand. When they first arrived in England to become circus exhibits, they were called “The Siamese Twins.”
kOK97 TIL that Jamie Foxx got the stage name of Jamie when he was starting out in doing stand up comedy and found out that female comedians usually got called up first on stage to perform. By choosing a more feminine sounding name, he tricked the promoters into putting him higher in the performing order.
114P TIL: There’s a statue in Glasgow called the “Duke of Wellington” with a traffic cone on its head since 1980. The city removed it several times but a new one would appear in the night so they gave up and it now a permanent icon of the city.