› added 12 years ago

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TIL The government can prevent itself from being sued, simply by claiming that to bring the case to court would reveal state secrets. In the Supreme Court precedent case, the government lied about any secrets being revealed

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0dpRy TIL The space burial company Celestis will include DNA from presidents George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan on their upcoming memorial flight to be launched in deep space this year.
4kgob TIL pythons and boas have vestigial or leftover pelvic girdles and hind limbs that show up externally as a pair of "spurs" near the base of the tail. Male pythons use these spurs during courtship and mating.
Zp4Qo TIL that children in ancient China learned to write from "Thousand Character Text", a 1000-word poem where the characters do not repeat and cover everything from philisophy to astrology.
69v1m TIL:That Albert Einstein was a big fan of the puppet show Time For Beany. During one high level conference, he interrupted to say, "You will have to excuse me, gentlemen. It's Time for Beany."
ddgZ TIL There exists a picture (taken in 1865) that shows a young Teddy Roosevelt, aged 7, watching the Abraham Lincoln funeral procession from his window in New York City.