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TIL the descendants of the ancient Assyrians still exist in their ancestral homeland, and continue to identify as Assyrian. They constitute over 2 million today, and speak the modernized form of the Aramaic language.

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loyXr TIL Madame Nhu, Catholic first lady of South Vietnam (sister-in-law of unmarried President Diem), publicly responded to monk Thich Quang Duc's self immolation with "Let them burn & we shall clap our hands," insulting many among the Buddhist majority. Her father, ambassador to the US, disowned her.
e0Wgg TIL about "The Great Leveler," a book that argues that the greatest redistributions of wealth in history are during times of war, plague, and catastrophe, citing the Black Death and WWI as "actually suppressing inequality, by raising the price of labour."
LkR9P TIL: In the 16th century, the Pope declared the Capybara a fish, and it was allowed to be eaten during Lent.
0D9p TIL Digger is a military slang term for soldiers from Australia and New Zealand used prominently during WWI. In a wider social context it is linked to the concept of “egalitarian mateship.”
698rw TIL that a fancy electric light fitting is called an Electrolier (analogous to Chandelier, from which it was formed