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TIL Pluto is no longer a planet not because of its size but because it has "not cleared its neighboring region of other objects.”

Read more loc.gov

via reddit.com

6MLZ TIL that the first documented case of child abuse was reported to an animal welfare organization, for lack of a better resource. Which means that animals had welfare rights in the US before children did.
GYKK7 TIL Joseph Philippe Lemercier Laroche was a Haitian engineer who lost his life on the Titanic.He was one of only 3 passengers of known African ancestry on the ill-fated voyage of RMS Titanic. He put his pregnant French wife and their two daughters onto a lifeboat;they survived but sadly he did not.
aYo0 TIL that Twenty Five percent of Spongebob Squarepants viewers are adults with no children. The show originally aired in 1999 and will have a new season in summer 2015
8aVQ4 TIL that Dragonflies are older than dinosaurs and used to have a wingspan of 2.5 feet
MeP4V TIL in 1956 Marija Gimbutas postulated the "Kurgan hypothesis" - that the source of Indo-European languages across Eurasia were the Steppe cultures of the Pontic steppe who first domesticated horses and invented the wheel. In recent years, ancient DNA studies seem to have proven her theory correct.