› added 9 years ago

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TIL after the Sandy Hook shootings, people donated more than 65,000 teddy bears, 9 tractor trailers of paper snowflakes, and half a million letters to a town of only 27,000 people. Since then the bears have been re-donated across the globe to places including Haiti, and Afghanistan.

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8e0Qa TIL: There existed elephant duels in SE Asia. Opposing army leaders of equal status would face each other on the battlefield in single combat atop elephants. It was seen as honorable and heroic as it avoided troop losses. The practice died when the Portuguese introduced guns in the 16th century.
OoAoX TIL The name "Sri Lanka" does not come from the fact that it is by far the biggest island off India's coast (Lanka just means "island"). The honorific "Sri" came with the independence movement in British Ceylon. So the name doesn't mean "Lord Island" or "Great Island" but rather "Sovreign Island".
njWP TIL that the solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist.
j6oXj TIL that in 1970 Kinks lead singer Ray Davies had to fly from America to the UK just to re-record 2 words of the song Lola. The lyrics originally contained the words Coca-Cola and using a brand name meant it was banned by the BBC. The words were changed to cherry cola.
a8gYN TIL that only three one-letter .com domains in existence: q.com, x.com and z.com. They were registered before 1992 and grandfathered in, but ICANN banned any corporation from being able to own any of the other 23 letters one letter domains.