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TIL that Fidonet, a pre-internet networking technology, still exists and is used today

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epjOk TIL that the rapture, the evangelical belief that Christians will physically ascend to meet Jesus in the sky, is an idea that only dates to the 1830s.
oRprW TIL After Colonel Shaw was killed, Confederates buried him in a mass grave to insult his leadership of Black soldiers. When Union troops tried to recover his body, his father wrote, "We would not have his body removed from where it rests with his brave soldiers."
rRA11 TIL that sound forensics make it possible to reconstruct speech or other sound by watching leaves of a plant, earbud speakers or a potato-chip bag with a camera, even through soundproof windows.
wL5k7 TIL that when a shark is flipped on its back it enters a state of paralysis that lasts for up to fifteen minutes. The phenomenon is known as "Tonic Immobility." In some cases orcas have been seen maneuvering a shark upside down to induce this paralyzed state.
4XMeR TIL in 1943 the U.S. imposed a ban on sliced bread as a conservation measure during WWII. It lasted less than two months.