› added 12 years ago

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TIL a 1997 study on affirmative action showed that, controlling for grades and SAT scores, “Whites were three times, Hispanics six times, and blacks more than 15 times as likely to be accepted at a US university as Asian-Americans.”

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Pjvn TIL that American soldiers reinforced the idea that their base was “protected by a force field” in Iraq and it worked and lead to less attacks.
OX5R TIL that one of the first things free blacks could grow, eat, and sell were watermelons. It became a symbol of freedom that was corrupted into a negative stereotype by southern whites and still persists today.
DdJV TIL 50 Cent made $8.7 million using Twitter to convince people to invest in a failing penny stock.
9YwAr It happens to everyone. You might be walking back from grabbing a drink at your favourite neighbourhood watering hole, strolling through a dense forest, or even merely getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom when you hear that squishy sound. An ant, a cockroach, a beetle, a centipede, or whatever it used to be, is stuck to the bottom of your foot. Did the bug feel pain when it exploded? Did it feel fear? Did it even have time to be scared? If it had time, would it have done something or said something to any of its bug buddies?
9w67D TIL up until the 70s, movies were only copyrighted for 56 years. This means all movies released in 1966 (and prior) would be in the public domain by now. Instead, it was expanded to 95 years and one must now wait until 2062.