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203

TIL Elephants are compassionate toward the weak and altruistic toward other species

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eMbb TIL Some people are upset that Memorial day was changed in 1968 to be the last Monday of May rather than the 30th, saying: “Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day.”
GGPj TIL in the UK penny coins are a legal tender only up to 20p
W7kLd TIL that a man who witnessed the Lincoln assassination as a small child actually made a live appearance on television. He died two months after it was filmed.
aw1yJ TIL China's "Lost Army." Following the Chinese Civil War, a KMT army fled into Burma and continued to fight the CCP from there. To fund their war, they seized a Burmese province and turned it into narco-state. Some of these soldiers eventually formed some of Southeast Asia's first drug syndicates.
pk8Z TIL that in 2000 a Mexican woman, Inés Ramírez, was forced to resort to self-surgery – a Caesarean section – because of lack of medical assistance during a difficult labour. She took 3 shots of hard liquor, then performed the surgery herself with a kitchen knife.