› added 9 years ago

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TIL that there is a small group of Filipino Marines living about a rusting grounded Ship in the middle of the South China Sea, they are the only thing that stands between ever pressing Chinese Fishing and Warship vessels from De facto control of the Area.

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e0G4 TIL - in 2009 Bill Gates purchased the rights to the Feynman Lectures so that he could annotate them and make them freely available.
ADJR4 TIL Before the British partitioned India, the spoken language of Urdu and Hindi was referred to collectively as “Hindustani”. When India became independent, Gandhi wanted to keep this Hindustani language. But later Urdu became official language of Pakistan, and Hindi, official language of India
gM7b TIL that a crucial section of the Quran may have been mistranslated. According to a scholar of ancient Semitic languages, the 72 virgins that await martyrs in paradise are actually 72 white raisins.
R7L41 TIL George Miller, an M.D. at the time, was inspired to make Mad Max (1979) when he witnessed fights break out during a gas shortage in Australia. He assumed in the future nations would not implement infrastructure for renewable energy until it was too late and this could lead to a dystopia.
YpmYA TIL that Pittsburgh put up "Kindness Zone: BE NICE / ALL DAY EVERY DAY" street signs this year as part of a statewide campaign to honor Mr. Rogers