› added 2 years ago

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TIL that Fahrenheit 451, a book about a distopian future where books are banned and burned, was banned and burned by the apartheid regime in South Africa with other tens of thousands.

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M7JO0 TIL Vesta Stoudt, an Illinois mom working in a WWII munitions plant, invented duct tape
EA7x TIL the US Patent Office building was the only major government building to survive the British burning of Washington DC during the War of 1812.Superintendent Dr. William Thorton persuaded the British that they’d be destroying the shared intellectual record of mankind if the patents were burned
KDDJ TIL In 2010, a man swallowed two spoonfuls of pure caffeine, and quickly collapsed and died.
606Y TIL Hattori Hanzo, the swordmaker in Kill Bill, is named after a real samurai
x6J10 TIL that there’s a 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet that records excuses for why people missed work. This ancient document from the village of Deir el-Medina includes reasons like tending to a sick child, brewing beer, and even being bitten by a scorpion.