› added 8 years ago

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TIL that Russia will provide you with a free football pitch-sized tract of land in its Far East to settle upon and start your own farm or business. After 5 years, you will be given Russian citizenship.

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via reddit.com

WkrJB TIL the torch of the statue of liberty was closed on July 30, 1916, due to the Black Tom Explosion in the New York Harbor. It was a sabotage mission by the Germans during WWI.
VMy78 TIL A moment was a medieval unit of time. The movement of a shadow on a sundial covered 40 moments in a solar hour, a twelfth of the period between sunrise and sun. Although the length of a moment in modern seconds was therefore not fixed, on average, a moment corresponded to 90 seconds.
mx8VP TIL in the first Rambo movie "First Blood", Rambo kills one person. In fact, the only death in the whole movie is an accident. In comparison, Rambo kills 76 in "First Blood II", 132 in "Rambo III", and 236 in "Rambo".
epjx4 TIL: Gerhard Schrader created Preparation 9/91, an insecticide, for his employers. However, it was too effective and killed users leading to his employers to say he failed. The, however, impressed the Third Reich and he was hired for $20,000 to develop it into Sarin gas as modern poisons took hours.
grPE7 TIL in 1956, the U.S. Air Force attempted but were unable to shoot down a runaway drone in southern California. All their rockets fell, causing large brushfires and damaging homes and vehicles in the city of Palmdale. 1,000 acres (400 ha) were burned. It became known as the "Battle of Palmdale".