› added 12 years ago

192

TIL: An American charity pays drug addicts roughly $300 to get sterilized.

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68pX TIL that Thomas Jefferson once said that “If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable”
N70VM TIL the idea for YouTube arose when one of its founders wanted to see the clip of Janet Jackson's nipple being exposed at the SuperBowl and realized how hard it was to find clips online
arjb TIL Mao Zedong ordered the people of China to kill sparrows because they steal grain. Since sparrows also eat insects, their absence caused a locust epidemic that ravaged crops and killed millions of people.
e0MYD TIL the star Antares is so named because it is the anti-Ares. Because of its similarity in color to Mars, ancient astronomers had to distinguish between Mars and "not-Mars"
1OaP TIL that Nazi Germany had a research programme (Wunderwaffe) that included a stealth bomber, night vision, a 1,500 ton super tank, submarine aircraft carrier, an x-ray gun, and a satellite with a concave mirror to “make an ocean boil or burn a city”.