› added 5 years ago

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TIL that the U.S. only spends 12% of its total budget on military, despite commonly held notions that it spends upwards of 40 - 70%.

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v1Zr4 TIL that a crowd of 500 Northern civilians tried to watch the First Battle of Bull Run. Among them was a US congressman. He was close enough to the battle that, during the Union retreat, he was captured by Confederate infantry. Upon his release, he wrote a best-selling book about his imprisonment.
9Y5rQ TIL Suriname is a country in South America that uses Dutch as a majority language. Sranan Tongo is a creole language also spoken there, made of English, Dutch, Portuguese, and West African languages. Population includes Natives, Dutch, Indonesian, Indian, Chinese, and runaway slaves (Maroons).
DDvJ TIL that when snakes slither, they’re actually lifting parts of their body off the ground a tiny amount, and are effectively “walking” on their coils. Even accounting for this, mathematical models of snake movement can only account for ~90% of their top speed, the final ~10% being a mystery
X07JP TIL that soft tissues, like biological cells, really can preserve in dinosaur bones. Maybe even some biomolecules like proteins!
P1kkL TIL the McLaren F1 is so valuable now, that it is essentially impossible for one to be "written off" by an insurance company, since the repair costs will always be less than the value of the car. Furthermore, McLaren will fully repair a crashed F1, no matter how substantial the damage.