› added 7 years ago

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TIL that Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore started an Organization called Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children with the goal of designing software to help save children from human sex trafficking. Since then, it has already helped law enforcement identify thousands of victims of human sex trafficking.

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QJKwk TIL when China leased to Britain the New Territories of Hong Kong in 1898, British diplomat Claude MacDonald secured a 99-year lease only because he thought 'it was good as forever'. Britain did not think they would ever have to give the territories back.
VBwGZ TIL that traditional lacquer is made w urushiol sap, aka the rash-causing toxin in poison ivy & poison oak. In fact, "urushi" (as in "urushi-ol") is the Japanese for the Chinese lacquer tree (also toxic) & an English word for lacquerware. They all fall in the genus Toxicodendron, or "poison tree".
M7EBb TIL There was a Portuguese woman in early 18th century who disguised herself as a man and joined the army, fought in India and became captain of a fortress. She was found out when she asked the king for permission to marry a colleague.
awMm0 TIL there are almost 40 saints associated with epilepsy and Saint valentine is one of them. One connection is that in German, Valentine is pronounced "fallentin" which is connected to one denomination of the illness (fallen), literally the falling sickness.
v1rRj TIL that for 18 months, a village in Wales was mystified as to why their broadband internet crashed at 7am every morning, until engineers "picked up a large burst of electrical interference" springing from one dude turning on his very old TV.