› added 8 years ago

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TIL the official name for Greece is the ‘Hellenic Republic’

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LJLV TIL A Japanese farmer discovered a gold seal while repairing an irrigation ditch in 1784. The seal turned out to be 95% pure gold and was a gift from the Chinese Emperor to a Japanese envoy from 54 CE, the earliest recorded date of contact between the two countries.
OBYg TIL that in 1988, Cosmopolitan magazine published an article claiming that heterosexuals had little risk of contracting HIV, and that transmission was impossible in the missionary position, long after the best scientific evidence indicated otherwise.
1r54 TIL on 9/11 the fighters deployed to the flight that later crashed in PA did not have time to be armed, and both pilots were fully prepared to give their lives by ramming their fighters into the hijacked plane.
0wdwj TIL In the skies over Germany in WWII, a badly damaged American B-17 was escorted out of enemy airspace by a German fighter ace who could've easily shot them down. Years later after the war, Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler reunited and became lifelong friends.
kOp51 TIL that last year, researchers from the University of British Columbia figured out how to convert blood type A into the universal Type O, which all patients can receive in a transfusion, regardless of their own blood type. This could broaden the supply of blood and ease shortages.