› added 9 months ago

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TIL that despite being just 250 miles from mainland Africa, Madagascar was originally settled by seafarers from Indonesia -- 3,000 miles to the east.

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9YZ7D TIL on April 1st, 1993 a San Diego Radio station reported that the space shuttle Discovery had to make an emergency landing at the local airport at 8:30 am. Over 1000 people headed for the landing site to catch a glimpse, crowding the airport and causing traffic jams. It was an April Fools hoax.
LkjlZ TIL that nearly 40% of Americans expressed a negative opinion of "Wisian-Americans"—a fictitious group—in a survey about social attitudes that was conducted by the General Social Survey, a project of the National Science Foundation.
MeOAW TIL that Ethel (Vivian Vance) and Fred (William Frawley) of I Love Lucy hated each other. While out to eat she heard of his death, she celebrated and ordered everyone in the restaurant a bottle of champagne
pbx4 TIL of a Herculaneum, a neighboring city to Pompeii that suffered the same fate but is better preserved.
YpWWd TIL Like an outsized fossil in the Sahara, the 30-mile diameter Richat Structure in Mauritania, originally interpreted as a meteorite impact, is a circular, eroded dome dating back to the splitting of Pangea.