› added 11 years ago

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TIL That more than 50% of the US internet traffic is carried by Northern Virginia’s data centers.

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NKEJ TIL in 1898 Andrew Carnegie offered President McKinley $20 million to free the Philippines instead of annexation. The US paid Spain $20 million to annex the Philippines at the end of the Spanish-American war, sparking the Philippine-American war that cost at least 200,000 Filipino civilian lives.
oBXrL TIL that a few years a couple in Bosnia discovered that they were cheating on each other, with each other. They had been chatting with one another on an online chat-room, without realizing that they were in fact speaking to their spouse.
4X6PR TIL that Rachel Carson, the scientist that discovered DDT's effect on wildlife, was seen as a threat to agricultural business. To discredit her, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture wrote a letter to President Eisenhower arguing that since she was unwed and attractive, she must have been a Communist.
0ddYN TIL in 2009 British people rebelled against the ongoing trend of X Factor victors winning Christmas number one by purchasing copies of Rage Against the Machine
nWrld TIL an apocryphal story states that the Roman Emperor Honorius was shocked upon the news of the 410 AD Sack of Rome. However, the emperor thought the news regarded one of his favorite pet chickens named Roma, and upon learning it was the city of Rome, the emperor breathed a heavy sigh of relief.