› added 4 years ago

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TIL that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover possessed one of the world's largest collection of pornography, both for blackmail and for personal titillation purposes

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78Vw7 TIL: The feeling of loneliness is the mind's way to signal danger, and that you should get back to the group(where you are protected and can share food). A feeling formed at the beginning of civilization. Basically a "survival mechanism" like thirst and hunger.
oBnEK TIL that shortly before the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese government sent its declaration of war to its embassy in America. However, the message was so long and confusingly worded that by the time the embassy had it decoded and translated, the attack had already finished.
neEZB TIL: Because of a botched surgery intended to repair a severely perforated eardrum, that actually caused permanent inner ear damage, Stephen Colbert wasn't able to scuba dive for a marine biology job he wanted which pushed him to comedy. The damage to his eardrum also left him deaf in his right ear.
oR9dE TIL Jackie Kennedy studied French Indochina and become passionate about it .Her fluency in French and knowledge of French History was particularly valuable, as she was able to translate French books, documents, and treaties related to Indochina, which helped JFK in his understanding of the region.
Wk0GN TIL It's ridiculously hard to get an accurate measurement of a coastline that all will agree on.