› added 5 years ago

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TIL the government can seize private property and sell it to another private owner for vague promises of "economic development." Suzette Kelo had her home demolished to build hotel-retail space, but the developer cancelled the project and the lot is now vacant. SCOTUS ruled in the City's favor.

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JJAm TIL In 1999, Lene Hau led a Harvard University team who, by use of a Bose-Einstein condensate, succeeded in slowing a beam of light to about 17 metres per second, and, in 2001, was able to stop a beam completely.
9YlMM TIL Uri Geller believes Nintendo 'stole his identity' for the Pokemon Kadabra, and no agreement has yet been reached between the two parties. As a result, there has not been a Kadabra card released in the Trading Card Game since 2003
oB1WE TIL because of a 1954 report on illiteracy, Houghton Mifflin's edu director gave Theodor Geisel with a list of 348 words he thought 1st graders should learn, asking Geisel to cut it down to 250 and to use those words to write a book. Geisel returned using 236 of them in his book, The Cat in the Hat.
J1Kbm TIL that Ramones singer Joey Ramone was born with a parasitic twin attached to his back.
wLZE1 TIL Bill Gates predicts that the growth of instructional software will replace textbooks. However, in a 2018 survey of college students, the trade publication Library Journal found that 75 percent say that reading print books is easier than e-books