› added 12 years ago

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TIL that Japan’s Shinkansen high speed rail system has never had a fatal accident in nearly five decades of service.

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ANl1a TIL about Pharaoh Akhenaten who attempted to upend centuries of tradition by forcing the people of Egypt to abandon their pantheon of gods in favor of worshipping a single deity, Aten. After his death, monuments were dismantled, his statues destroyed, and his name excluded from lists of rulers.
kJAAg TIL in December 1967, then sitting Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt went missing while swimming and was never found. Shortly after, a community swimming pool in Melbourne was named after him...
R5PWa TIL Despite having no official relations, Indonesia convertly bought A-4 combat jets from Israel in the 80s and sent pilots and technicans to train how to operate them. The pilots went as far as going to the US to take pictures of themselves at various landmarks for a cover story.
mpGM TIL Herodotus wrote about fuzzy, dog sized ants living in India which dug up gold to build ant hills. For centuries, people assumed it was made up. In the 1990s, scientist discovered a fuzzy marmot living in India that digs up gold whenever it burrows.
neMQb TIL one in five Georgian Londoners had syphilis by their mid-30s