› added 1 year ago

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TIL People had known about planet Mercury since ancient times, but Samuel Schwabe wanted to see if there were any other planets even closer to the Sun than Mercury. He tried his best to discover a new planet between 1826 and 1843 but noticed sunspot cycles instead

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0dP6p Today I learned that Stephen Duncan, the largest slaveholder during the civil war (and second overall in US History) was actually pro-unionist and was ostracized by the confederates he lived with in Mississippi
69PvW Today I learned that there's a philosophy that posits that the collective meaning of life is to gain knowledge and help in human progress
xVBmg TIL: there is an engineering marvel in Norway. One huge platform stand on just one concrete column in the sea with 251 meters height! I just wonder how they built it till I watched this documentary about it.
5KRn TIL that in WWI, the Germans converted liner SMS Cap Trafalgar into an armed merchant cruiser, which they then disguised as the British liner HMS Carmania. Off the coast of Brazil, Trafalgar was attacked and sunk by a British ship. That ship was also an armed merchant cruiser; the real HMS Carmania.
X0M6R TIL in China, censorship became a huge industry, one of a major city Jinan is famous for it, even got a nickname "The capital of censorship"