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TIL When you become a U.S Citizen, you get sent this video.

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7rWnX TIL George Washington mandated the creation of the Contingency Fund for Foreign Intercourse, a secret program comprising 12% of the U.S. government's budget which funded clandestine intelligence gathering missions in Europe, including spies and political subversion.
b6nnZ TIL when Marie Curie fell into a depression, Einstein wrote her a letter telling her he felt lucky to have met her, and, referring to the newspaper articles constantly attacking her, he advised her “to simply not read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated.”
oAeo TIL Dumas based “The Count of Monte Cristo” on the real life story of a man who inherited a fortune while falsely imprisoned and then used the money to track down and murder the three men who accused him.
1676W TIL that playing games like Tetris immediately following a traumatic event can greatly decrease the chances of suffering intrusive flashbacks of the incident.
newwb TIL WWII shipwrecks are an important source of "low background steel" (i.e. steel produced before the introduction of nuclear weapons) required to produced devices sensitive to radioactivity.