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14

TIL that during the 2017 Mexico City earthquake, a TV network fabricated live coverage of a fake survivor trapped in the ruins of her primary school for ratings. After the hoax was exposed, a rival TV network mocked them by airing an old Simpsons episode where Bart pulls off a similar hoax.

B5wW TIL that in an 8-hour day, a survey found that the average worker is only productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes.
eW84 TIL that in World War II the United States created a program called “Hemp for Victory” where farmers and their sons wouldn’t be drafted if they grew Cannabis for the war effort.
BgvAy TIL that in 1980, Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore warned Australia it was on track to become the ‘poor white trash of Asia’ if it didn’t open up its economy. Australia did open its economy, thrived, and has very close and friendly relations with Singapore.
ADKdd TIL that from time syphilis first emerged, in the 1500s, countries blamed neighboring and sometimes enemy countries for the outbreak; Italy, Germany & the UK called it ‘the French disease’, the French named it ‘the Neapolitan disease’, and there are numerous other instance (Listed here, paragraph 3)
vrA7 TIL the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (the largest study of its kind) concluded that human actions are depleting Earth’s natural capital in such a way that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.