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TIL Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders was fired after she suggested that masturbation should be taught in schools

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7NYp TIL that the biggest known star is 1540 times the size of the Sun, and if it was placed in our Solar System it’s surface would engulf the orbit of Saturn.
gMjwD TIL in 1857 Senator James Hammond, representative of South Carolina, released a manual of breastfeeding rules for enslaved women. The manual regulated time spent breastfeeding and rigidly set weaning schedules. The women were forced to nurse the children of their owners as well as other babies.
e0Or4 TIL the Delaware Aqueduct, which provides half of New York City's fresh water, has been leaking up to 35 million gallons of water per day since at least the 1990s.
MQX0 TIL the US signed a treaty in 1977 banning the use of weather modification techniques for warfare.
0wKy1 TIL of Mariya Tsukanova, a Soviet medic during WW2. She saved dozens of lives, and took up a machine gun, firing until she lost consciousness from injuries. Being outnumbered, she was brutally tortured and executed by the Japanese and killed. She was named "Hero of the Soviet Union." posthumously.