› added 11 years ago

139

TIL that in 400 BC Persian engineers could store ice, in the desert, in the middle of summer.

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4oLw TIL that in 2009, the UK tried to prevent the indigenous population of the British Indian Ocean Territory from returning to their homelands by establishing a “marine reserve”, making it difficult for them to reclaim their land and re-settle. The documents later showed up on Wikileaks.
OOBY TIL around 87% of Ontario residents aren’t aware The Beer Store monopoly is not run by the government.
xV4aB TIL Queens went from having a 96.54% white population in 1950 to 44.08% of it being white in 2000.
rN6b1 TIL: Rice brokers were extremely influential during the Edo period. Rice brokers provided rice loans, set up the Kyoto central rice market, and introduced paper money. However, inflation, the inability of samurai to pay back their loans, and the debasement of rice ended the rice broker profession.
d8Kx8 TIL that cows contaminated with radiation from the Chernobyl disaster caused nearby computers to crash.