› added 10 years ago

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TIL that even though many people cite the PISA test scores as a source that Americans are behind in education, the test scores show that Americans beat every other OECD country when controlling for poverty in schools.

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kO6l7 TIL American Indians Serve in the U.S. Military in Greater Numbers Than Any Ethnic Group and Have Since the Revolution
ne8bW TIL that in 1981 10 million Poles (1/3rd of working people) joined the trade union Solidarność forcing communist goverment into democratic elections.
p75N TIL in 2004, an activist from The Yes Men falsely claiming to represent Dow Chemicals was interviewed by BBC, claiming Dow had agreed to a $12 billion settlement for victims of the 1984 Bhopal, India chemical disaster (in which 3,000 peopl died). Dow lost $2 billion in the ensuing stock selloff.
epyak TIL Tom Hanks starred in a 1981 film called "Mazes and Monsters" that was based on a false account of a college student losing his grasp of reality from playing Dungeons and Dragons.
aYyA TIL after an American Idol contestant was rejected by the judges, he told them to “Be careful” (a common way of saying “Farewell” in Louisville ). The judges bristled immediately and took the comment as a threat.