› added 7 months ago

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TIL that, on gaining power, the Nazis immediately targeted the civil service with a 1933 law to improve “professionalism” by expunging non-Aryans and political opponents. This law was a key reason why Einstein fled to America.

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M7yPK TIL the longest recorded sniper kill was made last year by Ukrainian, Vyacheslav Kovalsky, taking out a Russian soldier from 2.36 miles away using a custom rifle called "Lord of the Horizon." This feat breaks the previous record held by a Canadian sniper at 2.2 miles in Iraq.
Me197 TIL That learning to swim fully dressed and other water survival skills are part of a compulsory educational programme for kids in Netherlands due to a large number of canals and open water
M7VAW TIL that Andrew Jackson's grey parrot Poll attended his funeral, and "commenced swearing so loud and long as to disturb the people and had to be carried from the house.”
EgvMX TIL in 1995, a military factory exploded near Rio Tercero city in Argentina, sending a shell storm that killed seven people and injured over 300, and destroyed parts of the city. It was discovered that the explosion was deliberate to hide evidence of smuggling weapons to other countries.
a94Z TIL the precedent set in the Supreme Court case of Wickard v Filburn (which allows the government to stabilize the market by destroying excess food) was used in Gonzales v. Raich to give the federal government the power to criminalize medicinal marijuana despite state laws which may make it legal