› added 5 years ago

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TIL that even though Berkeley had one of the best rugby teams in the US that won many national championships, the university wanted to get rid of the team in 2010 in order to reduce costs. Only after a ton of fundraising was the sport kept.

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jGpM TIL the Walmart heirs are funding an anti-solar campaign.
6wBl TIL a New Zealand teen set a friend on fire as a prank. In his defense he stated “If he’d stopped, dropped and rolled, it would have just been a joke instead of a serious incident.”
MGx7 TIL as well as receiving sword taps to the shoulders, a gentleman might also get a ritual slap across the face as a final affront he’d have to accept prior to becoming a fully-fledged knight
R7jyQ TIL that in south London in 1864, Thomas Webster Rammell built an atmospheric railway for passenger transportation, called Crystal Palace Pneumatic Railway, that went around 39.6 km/h (24.6 mph) through a 2.7x3m tunnel just by varying the air pressure in the tunnel before/behind the railway wagon.
p8MOZ TIL In the Argentine ‘Dirty War’ of the 1970’s, over 30,000 people were kidnapped. They would shout, ‘My name is soandso and I am being disappeared!’ This was so bystanders could find and tell their families.