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TIL that the Great Green Wall is an ambitious ecological project in Africa aimed at combating desertification and improving livelihoods for millions of people.

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nWdmP TIL that sustaining the filibuster in US political history has, at various times, involved: preparing a pee bucket, reading the phone book, reciting recipes, and in one most remarkable case, restraining Robert La Follette from hurling a brass spittoon at Joseph Robinson in 1917.
eMdk TIL Alexander Graham Bell committed a social faux pas when he unintentionally touched Queen Victoria’s hand when he demonstrated the telephone for her. Others in the audience gasped in horror but the Queen only noted how impressed she was with the telephone
A4yn TIL that Josef Stalin fired, imprisoned, or executed 3,000 biologists because he preferred the research of a guy who denied the existence of genes ard natural selection, and thought that rye could be transformed into wheat. Soviet crop yields declined during his tenure.
nALY TIL the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, at the age of 13, was one of the first known teenagers to take a mirror selfie.
NXb8Q TIL it can rain diamonds in Uranus and Neptune