› added 12 years ago

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TIL Bill Clinton gave the 1994 State of the Union Address completely from memory. When he saw the wrong speech had been uploaded to the teleprompter, he quickly recovered and said “I’m not at all sure what speech is in the teleprompter tonight, but I hope we can talk about the State of the Union.”

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R5gn4 TIL that the sarcophagus of pharaoh Nectanebo II was later re-used as a bath-tub.
we6M TIL that Trey Parker stated that Mr. Mackey is based off his old school counselor Mr. Lackey. On South Park season 1 commentary Trey said “[Mr. Lackey used to say], ‘Trey, quit fooling around and get back to your school work, m'kay’ 'but, now, I’m making millions out of him’ ”
78k4M TIL that in the record setting $2million dollar (before inflation) boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, they swapped referees to stop Al Capone from trying to rig the match.
XENxj TIL that the longest confirmed record of sperm storage in a female vertebrate to date belongs to a rattlesnake. Using DNA analyses, researchers confirmed that a female eastern diamond-backed rattlesnake was able to store viable sperm for at least 67 months before giving birth to a healthy brood.
EgvZV TIL that ants can recognize themselves in a mirror. In an experiment, blue dots were marked on ants' heads. When presented with a mirror, 23/24 tried removing the dot. Without the mirror, none tried to remove the dot, and nor did a control marked in a non-contrasting colour.