› added 11 years ago

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TIL that in 2002 a fire broke out at a girls school in Saudi Arabia and the religious police prevented girls from escaping because rescuers would be sexually enticed by the ‘improperly covered’ girls. 16 died.

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grnD4 TIL that the .io domain was originally meant for the British Indian Ocean Territory but startups decided to use it because it was short.
K7D9 TIL a VR experiment showed people given the power of superhero flight and told to perform search and rescue were more willing to aid others afterwards than those who were given a helicopter and told to do the same thing.
78P4r TIL the 1983 film "Scarface" was originally given an X rating three times in a row by the MPAA. On the fourth appeal, the film was finally given an R rating, but director Brian De Palma released the original version anyway, only admitting to it months after the film's release.
R7bo8 TIL the last claim under the 1866 Homestead Act, which entitled a person to free frontier land if they lived on it for five years and built a farm, was made on 80 acres near the Stony River in Alaska in 1979.
pY47O TIL in 2018 a Missouri deer hunter convicted of poaching hundreds of deer was forced to watch the animated film “Bambi” once a month for the duration of his one year prison sentence