› added 13 years ago

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TIL Zablon Simintov is the only jew left in Afghanistan

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j6xGn TIL General Hancock chose to sacrifice an entire regiment to save the Union Army during the Civil War. The 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment, 250 men, was ordered to charge a brigade of roughly 1200 men. They suffered a staggering 82% casualties; the largest loss by any surviving U.S unit in a day.
rN5x0 TIL SpongeBob was originally named SpongeBoy, but the legal team found that the name was already used by a pencil company (and not a mop company as many sources claim)
rN651 TIL that an entire town exists in Pennsylvania due to one of the only traffic lights on the Interstate system
9YLbB TIL of Canadian Air Marshal Charles Roy Slemon, who saved the world from possible nuclear annihilation by breaking protocol, when on October 5th 1960, the BMEWS site in Thule, Greenland falsely detected a level 5 ICBM attack due to the rising moon.
ONKX TIL the appendix may not just be vestigial in humans; a 2007 study suggested that appendices serve as safe havens for “good bacteria” when illness flushes other bacteria from the intestines. Afterward, the useful bacteria can quickly repopulate the intestines.