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TIL: The La Brea Tar Pits is a good example of a tautological place name - “The The Tar Tar Pits”. Others include; Torpenhow Hill, or Hillhillhill Hill…

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l7QDr TIL that recent research has found the brain is continuously changing its microstructure , and it does so by eating itself through a process known as phagocytosis. This can occur as a result of insufficient sleep, starvation, or as a consequence of aging or injury.
OJ6 TIL that in the early Roman Empire,light-color hair was associated with the barbarian women of Gaul and Germany who often ended up as slaves in brothels. Consequently, Roman law required all prostitutes to dye their hair blonde in order to distinguish themselves from “proper,” dark-mane ladies.
6Kwl TIL of “Zone Rouges”. Areas of France so polluted with vast amounts of human and animal remains and millions of items of unexploded ordnance from WWI that no human activity is allowed there.
ADRPw TIL "Jump Jim Crow" is a song & dance from 1828 that was done in blackface by white minstrel performer Thomas Dartmouth (T. D.) "Daddy" Rice. The term Jim Crow had become a pejorative term for African Americans by 1838 and from this the laws of racial segregation became known as Jim Crow laws
e0wd4 TIL James Watt needed to convince skeptics to ditch their draft horses&buy his steam engine. To prove its superiority, he measured a horse walking in ­circles to turn a grindstone in a mill. He multiplied distance it walked by its ­~180 pounds of pulling force&came up with a new measure: horsepower