› added 10 years ago

156

TIL By the time the last mammoth became extinct, the Great Pyramid of Giza was over 1000 years old.

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R87Q TIL that unlike other languages, the Korean script was a deliberate invention by a king, and is often considered the most scientific writing system in the world.
LQ6MV TIL that Mary, Queen of Scots, smuggled her dog to her execution under her skirts. The dog tried to stay near her corpse and afterward, died when it refused to eat.
neVrY TIL that the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Jeannette Rankin was the only member of the US congress voted AGAINST going to war with Japan. "As a woman, I can't go to war," she said, "and I refuse to send anyone else."
9YAk6 TIL Sand is the most valuable natural resource on the planet second to only water. The annual world consumption of sand is estimated to be 15 billion tons, with a respective trade volume of 70 billion dollar
LkOL0 TIL American soldiers in the Pacific theater of WW2 always used passwords containing the letter 'L' due to Japanese mispronunciation, a word such as lollapalooza would be used and upon hearing the first two syllables come back as 'rorra' would "open fire without waiting to hear the rest".