› added 9 months ago

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TIL that in the United States, there are at least 17 counties, 70 towns and cities, 10 squares, 33 streets, 14 schools, a hill, a park, a river, four hotels, a mountain, and two theaters named after the Marquis de Lafayette, a French General in the American Revolutionary War.

rRD1x TIL: Embodied cognition. A counterintuitive concept in cognitive science, which says that not only is the mind and body interconnected but that the body actively influences the mind thereby shaping how we process our surroundings and environment.
YpZyx TIL Simon & Garfunkel's first album was so unsuccessful on the charts that the duo split. Their producer took one of the songs from the album, overdubbed/remixed it without their knowledge or permission, and "The Sounds of Silence" became a hit. The duo made four more albums.
VMXYk TIL during the Great Famine, the Ottoman Sultan "Abdulmejid I" couldn't donate more than £1,000, in order not to embarrass Queen Victoria's £2,000 donation. Wanting to donate more, he sent up to 3 ships filled with wheat and Indian Corn as a "hushed-up" gesture, not wanting to upset the Queen.
epBmE TIL that the California St. Francis Dam disaster of 1928, a midnight-hour 120' wave that killed 431 sleeping people and wiped out giant sections of land more than 50 miles west to Ventura, was caused by the dam having been built on a fault zone (in addition to the dam's retention of water).
vxxD TIL: In 1982, Key West declared that it was seceding from the US. It then declared war, immediately followed by peace, and then asked for $1 billion in aid. The entire ordeal was symbolic.