› added 4 months ago

10

TIL Abraham Lincoln tried to buy the Mexican Island of Cozumel for the purpose of relocating freed American slaves in 1861.

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yQkYe TIL the Greeks often described foreign languages as sounding like "bar bar bar." Anyone who spoke a foreign language was called a Barbarian.
oBlYW TIL that the longest echo in a man-made structure is produced in an abandoned oil depot in Scotland, the Inchindown Oil Tanks. The echo lasts for 112 seconds.
VMDQ0 TIL that The Church of Scientology surreptitiously started to take over the Clearwater downtown in 1975 with plans to take over the entire city. Presently they own almost all the buildings(almost 200) in the downtown area apart from a presbyterian church, a few govt buildings and condos.
E1K0o TIL that bacteria are becoming more tolerant of hand sanitizers, but that regular hand washing with soap is a solution: “It's the physical action of lifting and moving them off your skin, and letting them run down the drain”
vPe64 TIL The Bic Cristal is the bestselling pen of all time, selling over 100 billion units, but had an infamously terrible spinoff. The "Bic Cristal for Her" was a pink version targeted at women that sold poorly, was publicly mocked, and inducted into the Museum of Failure.