› added 5 years ago

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TIL that Princess Diana's funeral was watched by approximately 2.5 billion people, which, in 1997, was about 43% of the entire population of Earth.

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b4ME TIL that the only recorded air-to-air helicopter battles in history occurred during the Iran-Iraq war, between Iraq MI-25 Hinds and Iranian AH-1J Internationals
Pjxe TIL Queen guitarist Brian May is an astrophysicist and member of the NASA team that interprets data from Pluto.
e0Xa6 TIL at the height of the Mongol Empire, Kublai Khan commissioned the creation of a unified script to be used by all languages within the empire. Called 'Phags-pa script, it was the official script for about 100 years, before falling out of use towards the end of the Yuan Dynasty in the 1350s.
GxLQ TIL the Han Dynasty in China was aware of the existence of the Roman Empire, calling them Daqin or “great Qin”. In 97 CE the Chinese attempted to send an envoy but he turned back after reaching a large “western sea”, discouraged by the long and perilous journey it would take to reach Rome itself.
5YGx8 TIL The US army maintains a public list of deserters