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TIL that the reason so many south and central Asian countries end in “stan” is because it’s an ancient word for “land of” or “homeland”

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78rYO TIL: Tapirs have prehensile penises that they use to grab hold of the females during mating to ensure insemination. The penis is also long enough to use to scratch its back.
aer9 TIL that during the Drew Carey Show, Craig Ferguson played the character Mr. Wick with an over-the-top posh English accent “to make up for generations of English actors doing crap Scottish accents”.
j6ban Today I learned that the gods of Asgard weren’t actually immortal. Without Idunn’s golden apples, they would age and weaken. Ragnarök wasn’t a tragedy it was inevitable.
6EvkZ TIL Purdue sales reps were taught to sell Oxycontin as less addictive than competitors, and addiction symptoms whilst on the pill was "psuedoaddiction" and to tell doctors that the fix for these symptoms was to push higher dosage pills to cure this.
rNaPo TIL that West Virginia's split from Virginia was controversial. Instead of joining the civil war, citizens met to form WV. Legally a state split needs the consent of the existing government, but when the only representatives in D.C. were from WV, Lincoln decided they were Virginia's only government.