› added 11 months ago

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TIL Abraham Lincoln signed into a law that began the IRS and was the USA’s first income tax. It was done to help pay for civil war expenses

Read more irs.gov

via reddit.com

gMLKL TIL that there's something called Bechdel Test which measures the representation of women in fiction, asking whether the work features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.
ADL4g TIL that the Virginia Opossum was intentionally introduced to the western United States during the Depression, likely as a food source. It didn't catch on.
d8WEK TIL that Female dragonflies fake a crash-and-die scenario in order to prevent males from harassing them to mate
LkxMP TIL that heroin was used as a painkiller for kids
x64kk TIL Stars appear to twinkle because their light passes through our atmosphere and is bent and distorted by varying temperatures and densities of air