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TIL Czar Nicholas II approved a tunnel across the Bering Strait in 1905 (with a cost estimated at $65 million and $300 million including all the railroads) although the plan was abandoned with the advent of WWI and the Russian Revolution.

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BroKk TIL that Aryan and Swastika are very common boy and girl names in India.
nkld TIL that people see their own faces as being more physically attractive than they actually are.
4krYX TIL that the buildings on the Greek Islands are whitewashed partially because whitewash was used as a cheap disinfectant that prevented cholera and other serious diseases in the early 20th Century
KeMa TIL that France is divided into holiday zones. Each zone’s schools have vacations at the same time, to prevent the overcrowding that would occur at resorts if every school in the country were to close at once.
EMOx TIL Anthony Hopkins’s inspiration for Hannibal Lecter was a cat. “…I sort of modeled my walk on a cat’s. I like cats, and I love the way they pad around. I wanted to get that feel when Lecter is padding very quietly and stealthily in the shadows around the streets of Florence.”