› added 7 years ago

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TIL that in 1939 20,000 Americans met in Madison Square Garden, then rallied in support of Hitler and the Nazis.

4XZdJ TIL about the potlatch, a ceremony of some First Nations on the Canadian Northwest Coast held to celebrate events (ex. marriages, births). It served to confer status and redistribute wealth, which was seen as anti-Christian and wasteful of personal property, leading to a federal ban from 1884-1951.
rRDVx TIL about hypertumors, a type of tumor that forms on top of an existing tumor and kills it. This happens more on larger animals, which may explain why blue whales don't die of cancer often.
N7xD8 TIL in 1975, Jack Hetherington, a physics professor at Michigan State University, wrote an entire paper on low–temperature physics and during proofreading realized that he had used “we” instead of “I” everywhere. Too lazy to change anything, he simply listed his Siamese cat Chester as his coauthor.
5VwbR TIL that Liberia, Africa was founded in the early 1800s by the American Colonization Society (ACS), a group of Afro-Americans/Afro-Caribbeans, funded largely by white Americans. Liberia was run by the minority descendants of the Americo-Liberians until the assassination of President Tolbert in 1980.
XOQj TIL the British tabloid The Sun heavily criticized Prime Minister Gordon Brown for misspelling the name of a deceased soldier in a letter of condolence to his mother. Brown apologized, and The Sun soon had to post an apology of its own for similarly misspelling the soldier’s name.