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267

TIL The longest English word takes three and a half hours to pronounce

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a8oDM TIL that since around 2010, the number of countries in the process of autocratization has risen above the number of countries democratizing
jNerj TIL about the concept of 'invented tradition', in which something believed or touted to be ancient is actually modern, such as ancestral Scottish clan-tartans, which are actually a 19th-century creation.
6Jpm TIL that New Zealand’s two main islands (the North Island and the South Island) didn’t have official names until 2009
16ngD TIL of the North American Water and Power Alliance, a proposed plan to divert water from The Yukon in Alaska to Southern California, Texas, and the Great Lakes
R7nbQ TIL the original writer and singer of the the lion sleeps tonight was only paid the equivalent of 2 US dollars but surprisingly his heirs were able to fight for justice using a 1940's British law.