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TIL The term "prehistoric" refers to a period of time prior to the written word or recorded history. This means that different parts of the world were simultaneously historic (such as Ancient Egypt) and prehistoric (such as the US).

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eJGn TIL that during the construction of the Hubble Space Telescope, a chip of paint flecked off a measuring rod and began giving off false readings. The mirror ended up being 4 microns off, resulting in billions of dollars worth of repair efforts.
dmr9 TIL carrots used to be purple until they were bred orange.
4XGG5 TIL that the phrase “God helps those who help themselves” is not stated verbatim in the Bible. The phrase is not even biblical in origin.
x6lA0 TIL that some metro stations in Bucharest have very narrow platforms, because Elena Ceausescu (the wife of Nicolae Ceausescu) wanted less stations in the metroline saying: "youth and working class is starting to get fat, so they need to walk more", so the workers had built those stations in secret.
NEre TIL You can have a spring loaded tube of poop mailed to someone.