› added 5 years ago

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TIL Ireland is the only Western European democracy to have signed a condolence book and visit the German ambassador following Hitler's death in 1945

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N7Lre TIL that Peter Glasser was granted a patent in 1973 for converting solar energy to electricity in outer space and beaming them back to earth as microwave energy using a large antenna (up to one square km).
b9yeN TIL Hubei has the largest primary forests remaining in Central China and provides habitat for many rare animal species, such as the Chinese Giant Salamander, the Golden or Sichuan Snub-nosed Monkey, and the Asian Black Bear. From 1884 to 1889 more than 500 new species were recorded from the area
Wk1dL TIL the reason coffee and tea were originally served on saucers was so you could pour the hot drink into the saucer, thus cooling it faster, and drink from it. This practice was used as a metaphor by G. Washington to T. Jefferson for why the US has a Senate.
Oo4Jg TIL, Kenny Loggins was one of many collaborators on the song "We Are The World" by USA for Africa, and that would lead to him to performing Footloose at the Philadelphia leg of the Live Aid famine relief concert event of the 1980s.
X0wXE TIL about Cash for Clunkers, which was a program designed to stimulate sales of new, fuel-efficient cars in the wake of the Great Recession, but was criticized for disrupting the used car market, and for scrapping exotic cars