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TIL rain on concrete or soil causes pockets of gas that were stored to be released because they get softened, which gives that familiar ‘after-rain’ smell

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dK1d TIL - The Chinese government has a nationwide surveillance system that they ACTUALLY NAMED Skynet
MeDpb TIL about Francis Pegahmagabow, a canadian indigenous man who fought in WWI. He killed 378 enemies with his Ross rifle and captured another 300, which makes him one of the most successful marksmen in the conflict.
mxMlY TIL Marie Curie's annex lab in Arcueil is sometimes called Chernobyl on the Seine. The lab closed in 1978 but radium has a half-life of 1,600 years, and there are traces of a uranium isotope at the Curie annex with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. The cleanup has so far cost about €10 million.
LoZr Today I learned Peter Jackson owns the movie rights to a book series about Dragons in the Napoleonic War
LkOmP TIL after journalist Paulette Cooper wrote an article criticizing the Church of Scientology, they tried to get her committed to a psychiatric ward by writing her name and number on street walls, subscribing her to pornographic mail lists, and faking bomb threats with her stationary and fingerprints.