› added 9 years ago

442

TIL that there are lots of English “contronyms”, or words that are their own antonyms (opposites).

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9Y5Or TIL Bright lights trigger the sneeze reflex. A 2017 German study points out that 57 percent of the country’s population will sneeze when looking at the sun or bright lights
6EAAQ TIL 60 tonnes of ivory trade per year comes from mammoths frozen between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago.
7rJ5L TIL a separatist movement in the 60% German-speaking Italian province of South Tyrol advocates the region's reunification with neighboring Austria. Italy was incentivized to enter World War I when a treaty permitted absorbing Tyrol. It was ceded in reparations, breaking Woodrow Wilson's promise.
R7vgj TIL the Quartering Act of 1765 did not force colonists host British troops in their homes as commonly believed. Rather, it called for construction of barracks, and if no room, housing was extended to “inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualling houses, and the houses of sellers of wine.”
1aABd TIL, in ancient Egypt, there was an event in which the Pharaoh would ceremoniously ejaculate into the Nile to encourage the fertility of the river.