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Today I learned that 79% of Americans are literate and that 54% of Americans read below a 6th grade level

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awDVJ TIL that the 1994 box office bomb Baby's Day Out was a huge hit in South Asia, beating Star Wars as the most successful American film. It was played for over a year at the largest theater in Calcutta and spawned two remakes
kOoWB TIL that it's estimated there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on earth, but there are more atoms in one grain of sand than there are stars in the universe... and I just can't wrap my head around that.
mx75P TIL that between 1628 and 1814, the Caribbean island of Tobago changed hands 33 times - it was variously held by the Dutch, the Curonians (a Duchy in modern-day Latvia), the English, the French, the Spanish, and the Swedish
R45a TIL: The soft inner part of bread is called the Crumb, not to be confused with crumbs
xVdwk TIL that William Shakespeare was inspired to write "Hamlet" - a play driven by the grief of a son for his father - by the death of his own son, Hamnet, who died at age 11. He began work on Hamlet a couple of years later. Until that time he had most been writing comedy plays.