› added 12 years ago

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TIL That the Dominican Republic offered to take 100,000 Jews in 1938. Only 645 made it and each Jew was given 80 acres of land, 10 cows, a mule and a horse.

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woggJ TIL that from 1992-1997, two-thirds of Albania’s population invested in state-backed pyramid schemes, with many people investing their life savings. When 25 schemes collapsed, civil unrest erupted, lasting over six months, toppling the government and requiring UN intervention to restore order.
v1bLR TIL phages (a group of viruses) were supposed to be studied as antibacterial agents in human medicine, but were cut short by the discovery of penicillin shortly after. With today's increasingly drug-resistant bacteria, phages are being considered once again.
p80AZ TIL that the Shroud of Turin (allegedly Jesus Christ’s burial shroud) may have been created using a lost form of medieval photography
LQrlV TIL at the height of operations during the Berlin airlift, one plane reached West Berlin every thirty seconds. The C-47s and C-54s together flew over 92,000,000 miles (148,000,000 km) in the process, almost the distance from Earth to the Sun.
J1Ddk TIL that the Great Indian Bustard was a prime candidate for the National bird of India, but was sidelined due to fear of misspelling it as the Great Indian Bastard!