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TIL The capital of Canada once alternated between Toronto and Québec every four years. Queen Victoria selected Ottawa in 1857 because it sits far from the American border and it is situated on a cliff, making it easier to defend from a possible attack

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b6pD9 TIL that in 2018, MIT scientists created a plane powered by an Ion drive. The plane had no moving parts and was able to fly 60 metres powered solely by a flow of ions generated through electrodynamics which created thrust.
mxOWO TIL on a rainy March night in 1999, robbers climbed atop a Loomis, Fargo & Co. tractor-trailer truck while it was being driven down the highway, cut a hole in the thin aluminum roof and snatched 270 pounds of $20, $50 and $100 bills worth 2.3 million dollars before escaping undetected.
DZke TIL that several years before the publishing of the renowned 1611 bible which was named after him, King James published a demonology describing the types of ghosts, spirits, vampires, fairies, witches, and even werewolves that haunt the land. It inspired Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Y7VRv TIL that the oral history of the Klamath indigenous people describes the eruption of a volcano and subsequent creation of Crater Lake in Oregon, events that geologists date to almost 8,000 years ago.
nL9Y TIL George de Hevesy dissolved the Nobel Prizes of James Franck (1925) and Max von Laue (1925) in acid to prevent the Nazis from confiscating them in 1940. After the war, he precipitated the gold and The Nobel Society recast the medals with the original material, presenting them to Franck and Laue.