› added 10 years ago

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TIL that in order to evade internet censorship in China, people used to refer to the events that took place at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 as “May 35th”, among many other alternative names

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wLM08 TIL that the first editions of Moby Dick omit the epilogue and move the extracts to an appendix. The plot holes created by this caused the book to flop on release.
5YnJR TIL while only being roughly the size of North Carolina, the island of Java sustains a population of 141 million. Comparatively the population of Japan is 145.9 million and three times the size in area.
4KbN TIL when a foreign dignitary stays over at Blair House (the sister version of White House), their national flag is flown over the premises and the area is considered foreign soil
Z8oV4 TIL that in 1829, nineteen Australian convicts revolted and seized a ship near Tasmania, which they then sailed to Japan. Though they offered gifts, including a boomerang, the Japanese expelled them and they ended up being recaptured in China.
P180J TIL about Chester Southam, a doctor who injected senile patients and convicted criminals with cancer cells to see wether it would spread to them, and tried to cure terminal cancer patients with West Nile Virus