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TIL when Groundhog Day was released, the Washington Post wrote that “‘Groundhog’ will never be designated a national film treasure by the Library of Congress”. In 2006, the film was selected by the National Film Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress.

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b9QG9 TIL In 1947 2,400 tons of the material responsible for the Beirut explosion(ammonium nitrate) exploded in Texas resulting in 500 people dead and a 15ft tidal wave.
p8Ym8 Imagine you spent your entire childhood, teenage years, and young adulthood stuck inside a small closet. One day, after much of your life, has passed you by, you realize that you can just open up the door, change into some more appropriate clothes, and hit the town! Free at last, what would you do first? Maybe sing a bit? Go on a few dates? By the way, you have two to four weeks to live. Yikes. This is not unlike the situation most cicadas face, as they spend almost their entire lives underground. For example, many of the cicadas emerging in 2016 have been underground for 17 years! To put that in perspective, the last Star Wars movie these insects saw was literally a menace. Imagine waking up in a world without Smash Mouth and Sugar Ray! Come to think of it, things are really looking up since 1999. A cicada’s ear-piercing call is intended to attract a gal pal. Considering that these little creatures’ time above ground is so fleeting, they need to lock down a date as soon as possible. This could be why most cicadas are louder than the average fraternity pledge. Adult males are the ones making such a racket, and some species can register sounds louder 100 decibels when calling for a potential mate. In this week’s Today I Learned, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and filmmaker Sandesh Kadur explains how cicadas sing such a loud song.
mWaE TIL that the tendency for small wettable floating objects to attract one another is called the “Cheerios Effect”
alL0 TIL that the Baby Boomers were nicknamed the “Me Generation” due to their perceived narcissism.
gM467 TIL that the only factory in the world that produces Coffee Crisp is located in Toronto, Canada, and that the chocolate bar itself is sold almost exclusively in Canada.