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TIL that the #1 high school in the US, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in which 2/3 of the student body is Asian but only via http://bit.ly/133mWgV

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1yQd TIL that after watching the movie ‘Lincoln’ (2009) , a neurobiologist did some extra research and found out that the state of Mississippi had never officially banned slavery. The state then ratified the 13th amendment (which bans slavery) in 2013, 148 years after Abe Lincoln first introduced it.
VMD6B TIL Brad Bird the creator of the 1999 film The Iron Giant was inspired to make the movie from the loss of his sister, who was shot and killed by her husband. The very end of the movie reads “For Susan”.
7rMjM TIL that when Mt. Everest was found to be the tallest mountain on Earth at 29000ft (the estimate at the time), an extra 2 feet were added on top of the number because they feared if it was too round of a number, the public would think they had picked an arbitrary number.
J1aoV TIL about Charles Mayers a seaman who survived the Halifax explosion. The explosion hurled him several hundred metres in the air and he landed naked on a hill a mile away.
4kK96 TIL about Mars Direct, a 1989 plan to get humans to Mars within ten years, using just two launches of a large rocket system and utilising local Martian resources