› added 5 years ago

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TIL that in 1997 Pope John Paul II had nominated St. Isidore of Seville to be the patron saint of the Internet, a seventh-century theologian and encyclopedist who tried to record everything ever known.

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D17kp TIL Walt Disney World near Orlando briefly had a real airport with a singing runway. Grooves in the tarmac were spaced so the lines played the opening notes of "When You Wish Upon a Star" when planes rolled over them. The airport closed in 1972.
8e1jP TIL that America's poorest state (Mississippis) has a higher GDP per capita than China's richest province (Jiangsu). Likewise, China's poorest province (Gansu) has a higher GDP per capita than India's richest state (Goa).
6nY TIL, after searching for ‘overkill’, that there is such a thing as a 'nuclear land mine’.
0w69p TIL the man who first created a Bureau of Investigation within the US Department of Justice, which would later become the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Xk7Q TIL that in the 1800s gay men in London made up an entire slang language so they could communicate in public without fear of being arrested.