› added 4 years ago

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TIL it costs just 55¢ to mail a letter to Little Diomede in the Bearing Strait (2 miles from Russia), the USPS’s costliest route at $300,000 per year. The 119 resident Eskimos rely on the USPS subsidizing the cost of the weekly helicopter runs delivering food and medication.

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4dyb TIL: Jews make up 62% of religious hate crime victims in the United States.
b9nbE TIL the script for Pirates of the Caribbean was originally an adaptation of the video game series Monkey Island
78JpZ TIL that the reason why Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer doesn’t appear in more movies is because unlike the other reindeer, Rudolph is copyrighted by a Connecticut-based company. He was created by Robert L. May in 1939, for a story for a coloring book, which turned out to be a huge success.
Wk5nA TIL fireworks were invented in China sometime between 200 BC and 900 AD. It is believed Marco Polo brought fireworks from China to Europe in 1295, and the global popularity exploded after that. In 1830, colors were added in Italy by adding different metallic powders.
ZpGdR TIL that "Antelope" is not a term for a specific african animal, but a common collective name for several species of horned animals, some of which are not closely related.