› added 4 years ago

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TIL Chinese Americans make up only 1.3% of the population of the United States.

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WkZE4 TIL the "Hogwarts Express" rescued a family caught by a flood in the Scottish Highlands. Faced with a 3-mile walk in a bog for kids aged 6, 8, 10 & 12, the father called for help; police had the next train pick them up called the Jacobite, which happened to be the train from Harry Potter movies.
QlL6 TIL Japanese WWII soldiers were found on an island in 2005 thinking the war was still going on
PYKGe TIL Even though a chess grandmaster can perfectly rearrange a midgame chessboard after seeing it for only 3 seconds, they can't do the same when the pieces are placed at random. They rely on a process called "chunking" (pattern recognition) vs common perception that they have photographic memories.
R5Vb4 TIL the link between the nutcracker and Christmas was due to the popularity of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker." Which, when introduced to the US, "helped make nutcracker dolls a Christmas decoration and a seasonal icon across Western culture"
1anPd TIL 800 years before the Black Death, the same bacteria cause plague in the Byzantine Empire. At it's peak, the plague killed 5,000 per day in Constantinople.