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TIL of democratic backsliding, the process through which a democratic government is gradually replaced by an autocratic one. Since 2010, the number of democracies backsliding into autocracy has been higher than those adopting democracies. Scholars have called this the third wave of autocrization

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oRAM8 TIL the US Navy had no idea Cher would be wearing a racy outfit when they agreed to let her film “If I Could Turn Back Time” on the battleship Missouri. They didn’t see her now-iconic fishnet bodysuit until filming started. The crew’s crazy reaction is genuine.
d8dGE TIL The seafloor sonar data obtained during the underwater search for Flight 370 gave scientists an unusually-large section of deep-ocean seafloor mapped at high resolution; Data revealed numerous subsea volcanoes and evidence of large submarine landslides
wxZM TIL while writing Hot Fuzz Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright referred to the supermarket manager, Simon Skinner as being played by a “Timothy Dalton type” actor before thinking to ask Dalton himself to be in the film. To their surprise Dalton had loved Shaun of the Dead and signed on for the role.
6nQX TIL of Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet’s idea of consciousness that is sometimes called “Free Won’t”: that our unconscious makes all our decisions for us, and the only free will we have is to “veto” its choices
16AWO TIL that, following World War 1, many black veterans were subject to violent murders and abuse. Many were attacked fro refusing to take off their uniforms