› added 8 years ago

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TIL in the 13th century, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II took two infants, raised them apart only to be suckled by nurses and not to be communicated with in attempt to see what the natural language of humans was (Hebrew or the language of their parents). However, the children died of neglect.

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dZWE TIL that the Challenger disaster delayed the Hubble Telescope launch for years, and the Hubble had to be stored in a clean room, powered-on, at the cost of $6,000,000/mo
66bQ TIL “… economists have pointed out that if all the money spent on federal antipoverty programs were given to [the poor], a family of four would have an annual income near $70,000. [They] get less than half the money [given] in their name; most goes to fund the bureaucracies that run the programs.”
9VoB TIL that the urban legend of carrots giving night vision was invented as a cover-up by the British RAF in WWII. They were able to shoot down German planes at night using radar; rather than letting the enemy know about their technology, they claimed it was carrots that gave the gunners night vision
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