› added 9 years ago

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TIL of the Behistun Inscription. Much like the Rosetta Stone, which was crucial in deciphering hieroglyphics, the Behistun is a multilingual inscription that was the key to decoding cuneiform. It told the story of King Darius’ struggle for power as well as his conquests in Mesopotamia and Persia.

xVrZ7 TIL of the Maniots, who claim descent from the ancient Spartans. They live on a small mountainous peninsula and despite being almost always outnumbered, they never succumbed to the Ottoman invasions. They would later go on to play a pivotal role in liberating Greece from the Ottoman rule.
yQoeJ TIL that after South Park’s ‘Cartoon Wars: Part 1’ aired, the team received an appraising phone call from the ‘King of the Hill’ staff and and flowers from the ‘the Simpson’s’ staff for “ripping on Family Guy”.
GY0Xg TIL that citizenship was granted to pollinators (bees, bats, hummingbirds, butterflies) in a suburb of Costa Rica's capital
loEaA TIL in 2009 US-Australian astronomers discovered the least windiest place on earth. Ridge A on the Antarctic Plateau is so calm that "the sky there is so much darker and drier, it means that a modestly-sized telescope there would be as powerful as the largest telescopes anywhere else on earth."
awvoJ TIL the President's desk in the Oval Office of the White House was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, & was carved from the HMS Resolute, a 19th century British Royal Navy ship that an American whaler recovered from the Arctic