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TIL that Egyptians didn’t use slave labor to build the pyramids - the builders were actually volunteers and were buried in the tomb if they died while building it.

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QNNYd TIL a plant hopper (Issus coleoptratus) is the first species found to have functional biological gears
Z867a TIL Smart people believe stupid things thanks to five "intelligence traps". These include "motivated reasoning", which leads us build arguments that rationalise our own intuitive views (even if they are wrong); and "earned dogmatism" - the sense that you know so much you can ignore new information.
1VYD TIL before it was burnt down in 48 BC by Julius Caeser, the Library of Alexandria is thought to have had a working steam engine.
ADvg4 TIL that Bakersfield and Fresno were built on top of a former lake, Lake Tulare, that was the largest freshwater lake west of the Missisipi. It was drained for Agriculture after the Civil War, and was completely gone by WW1.
6rRl TIL that in some cultures children were intentionally given names with unfavourable meanings like ‘ugly’ and 'crippled’, as it was thought that this would make them less desirable to child-stealing demons.