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

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wMbP TIL that when Mart Laar became Prime-Minister of Estonia at age 33, the only economics book he had read was Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose.” He said that it sounded good to him, “so we went ahead and did it.” Estonia now has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the EU.
1aRN8 TIL that contronyms are words that are spelled the same, but mean the opposite of each other. If one were asked to dust the chandelier, that would imply removing dust, but to dust the fruit might refer to the adding, or sprinkling of dust.
8a8e8 TIL that after the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in 1963, his alleged murderer was tried by an all-white jury who deadlocked twice and failed to convict. In 1994, Evers was discovered to be so well embalmed that forensic autopsy was still possible, leading to his murderers conviction.
xVyy1 TIL the axolotl can regenerate its limbs and parts of its brain. Its genome is also 10 times larger than the human genome. Today, scientists study the axolotl as a model of limb regeneration in vertebrates. There are only about 1,000 left in the wild.
a8EYb TIL that a genetic mutation made the Arabian Peninsula population lactose tolerent and able to survive on camel milk and live in arid climate. This was a factor in early Muslims' victories over the Persian and Roman empires as Arab fighters could launch raids before retreating deep into the desert