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TIL that half of all fertile women in Greenland in the 60s and 70s were forcibly given IUDs in a genocidal campaign, where the birth rate was cut in half.

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Oo8kX One night in 1987, a Canadian man named Kenneth Parks drove for 14 miles from his house to his in-laws. He then broke in and made his way upstairs, bludgeoning his mother-in-law with a crowbar that he’d gotten from the boot of his car before stabbing her repeatedly to death. He then proceeded to choke and stab his father-in-law, who miraculously survived. Parks then drove himself to the police station and turned himself in. It sounds like a fairly cut and dry murder case, but after going to trial, Kenneth Parks walked free. Thanks to a combination of a lack of motive, his consistent version of events, and data gathered from EEG readings, no charges were pressed against him because all evidence pointed to the unlikely and bewildering truth that Parks had been sleepwalking. It remains one of the most remarkable cases of homicidal sleepwalking in history.
6ElEQ TIL the 13-star American flag attributed to Betsy Ross was just one of many designs that fit the Continental Congress’ resolution that the flag have “thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field”
EgDO7 TIL Brendan Fraser is the first American-born actor to be inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.
wOR8 TIL that in 2017, the US will experience its first total solar eclipse since 1979, and that people from several countries are already trying to make hotel reservations―years in advance!
KOM59 TIL that "having the guts to fight" used to mean soldiers being diarrhea-free, and thus able to participate in battle