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TIL that George Washington once said that “Overgrown military establishments” under any form of government are “Inauspicious to liberty” and “are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty”

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yV5xv TIL that Samurai armour was largely made out of hemp (cannabis)
4Zeb TIL the smell given off by books can be used to tell the age of the books, and how close the books are to degradation.
wL9dM TIL In 1997, an American co., RiceTec obtained a patent for a strain of rice never historically grown in America — “Basmati”. They achieved this by crossbreeding India’s native plant with a US long rice variety & then claimed exclusive rights over any basmati hybrid grown in the western hemisphere.
rNW6w TIL: Children with a foreign mother are four times more likely than other children in Norway to be forcibly taken from their families and the number of children taken into emergency care rose by 50% in just 5 years with the commonest reason for a care order nowbeing simply "lack of parenting skills"
16pNV TIL Take Our Daughters To Work Day started nationally in 1993 to provide girls an opportunity to see real world role models. The program expanded focus to include sons in 2003.