› added 10 months ago

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TIL only 4% of Americans had a passport in the 1990s

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v1OXR TIL that, on 16 november 1949, students in Ghent (Belgium) stormed the medieval castle, lowered the portculis and threw fruit from the walls at the police to protest a new tax on beer. The event is still commemorated yearly by the city as the greatest student prank in its history.
K7D9 TIL a VR experiment showed people given the power of superhero flight and told to perform search and rescue were more willing to aid others afterwards than those who were given a helicopter and told to do the same thing.
9wVnM TIL that some reptile species are oviparous (lay eggs), while others are viviparous (birth live young), and that some species are capable of doing both.
X04mj TIL that 13% of American households own backyard chickens
jNLBa TIL the reason a clock is used as a metaphor for how close we are to extinction in the Doomsday Clock is that a clock implies a countdown and suggests that destruction will naturally occur unless someone takes action to stop it.