› added 7 years ago

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TIL the name “Six Flags” refers to the flags of the six different nations that have governed Texas: Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States, and the Confederate States of America.

KamE TIL Queen Victoria was raised under a strict set of rules called the Kensington System. This included being isolated away from most people, never being allowed an hour to herself, and having each of her every actions planned beforehand.
odWA TIL when Sally Ride was preparing to launch as the first US woman in space in 1983, reporters asked questions like “Do you cry when things go wrong on the job?” and “Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?”
R7ZX9 TIL that farmers in India used to catch monkeys by putting peanuts in coconuts and walking up to them. The holes in the coconut had to be big enough to allow them to slip their hands inside and small enough so that when they grabbed the peanuts and formed a fist they couldn't take their hands out.
mAgR TIL on the day of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, he had narrowly missed a previous attempt which had injured his men. He decided to visit them in hospital and his driver took a wrong turn and stopped a few metres away from the assassin who promptly shot the Archduke.
g5kb TIL a woman by the name of Lydia Fairchild took a DNA test that showed that the biological mother of her own children was her twin sister that did not exist. Further testing showed she was a chimera: a person who absorbs their twin in the womb and has two sets of DNA.