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TIL the present-day Washington State was originally called "Columbia", but Congress forced the name change to "Washington" in honor of George Washington and to avoid confusion with the nation's capital, the District of Columbia

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7rrvb TIL of the 17-yr-old girl who fell 10,000ft out of a plane without a parachute and survived 10 days in the Peruvian jungle.
xV0LB TIL the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv is Europe's oldest city, at some 8000 years old. It's so old that the city sits on about 39 feet of ruins from past cultural layers of the city's development.
JOwm TIL that the sloppy handwriting of doctors kills more than 7,000 people annually. Preventable medication mistakes also injure more than 1.5 million Americans annually
VMOjQ TIL With huge financial incentives from the United States, Egypt's Mubarak remained committed to the Camp David treaty, despite misgivings about dealing with Israel. To keep the peace at home, Mubarak instituted emergency laws to protect Egypt's stability and security
xyOg TIL that only around 35% of Americans have passports. The figure is an all-time high.