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TIL: the water speed record hasn’t been broken in over 45 years

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m0ov TIL, Neil Armstrong used to tell unfunny jokes about the Moon, and follow them up with “Ah, I guess you had to be there.”
GYQ4g TIL Quebec banned ads for toys and fast food aimed at children under 13, resulting in lowered childhood obesity rates.
rR4bo TIL of the “Great Sparrow Campaign” (打麻雀运动), during which Mao Zedong ordered the Chinese people to kill all sparrows, because they were eating farmers’ seeds. With the sparrows dead, the insect population exploded, and locusts devastated the rice fields.
RWM8 TIL that the Taipei 101 skyscraper uses a 728 ton steel tuned mass damper (basically a giant pendulum) to counter motion of the building since it is so close to a fault line.
Z8KQG TIL Walt Disney's younger sister Ruth lived to age 92. Ruth was very shy and private, giving less than a half dozen interviews over the decades. Walt would send an annual December birthday letter to Ruth, accompanied by a check along with a selection of Disney-related merchandise for her son