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TIL Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa designed Kazakhstan's new capital city of Astana with enormous pavilion space, hotels, and art venues. Even though the city has glitzy architecture and skyscrapers, the average resident only makes $450 a month

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E1PX7 TIL that Germany has a thriving community of people who are Native American aficionados, who study Native cultures, perform reenactments of Native and Wild West life, and even make "pilgrimages" to North America to visit important sites.
7r7wX TIL French and Italian share 89% lexical similarity, this means a native Italian without any knowledge of French can understand 89% of the words they read in French and vice versa.
9YOdB TIL the dragon snake's most notable feature is their unusual skin with 3 rows of enlarged, keeled scales running down its back resembling the backs of some crocodilians. When threatened, this non-venomous snake stiffens its body into a straight line. It is native to SE Asia and mainly eat frogs.
Zpp7G TIL Described as the first iced coffee, the Mazagran was named for the beverage that French colonial troops consumed during the 1840 siege of the Mazagran fortress in Algeria. Troops prepared the coffee syrup with water in the absence of milk or brandy and drank it cold to counter the heat.
Wa6L TIL that in 1954 John Stapp strapped himself to a rocket sled, accelerated to 632 MPH in 5 seconds, and then decelerated to 0 MPH in 1.4 seconds. He experienced 46.2 G’s. He went temporarily blind and experienced two black eyes from his eyeballs having been shot so far forward.