› added 4 years ago

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TIL Newspeak from "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is based on an actual language proposal - Basic English, a proposed easy-to-learn version of English with only 850 core words.

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neWKo TIL In pre-colonial Nigeria there was a city with walls four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops
P1m4L TIL before the modern ambulance, funeral homes used hearses to bring patients to the hospital. This is because the hearse was often the only vehicle long enough to fit a stretcher inside.
QbBM TIL that Martin Van Buren, 8th president of the U.S., did not mention his wife of 12 years even once in his 800 page autobiography
ANDW7 TIL the Irish government developed a plan for an invasion and occupation of Northern Ireland in 1970, during the Troubles.
69go7 TIL that humans have trained rats to sniff out land mines in Vietnam.