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TIL the shortest war in history was just 38 minutes.

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dD4Aj TIL in 1965 a 90 year old woman in France sold her home in an arrangement that allowed her to live in it for the rest of her life and receive a 2,500 Franc monthly payment. That women went on to be the oldest person in history and received over double the properties value.
LKr9 TIL In 1973, the US government stopped research into thorium based nuclear reactors as, unlike Uranium reactors, their byproducts could not be used to make nuclear weapons
4YoR TIL that the Coliseum got its name not because of its massive size, but because its proximity to a colossal ‘Statue of Liberty’ sized bronze statue of the Emperor Nero.
Wk1wd TIL that bees will not build in a gap that is very specifically 6-9 mm in width (but they WILL build in larger or smaller spaces). This discovery, called "bee space", made modern beehives with removeable "frames" for honeycomb possible; otherwise, the bees would just cement everything together.
N7kl8 TIL After the Watergate scandal broke, Richard Nixon still won the 1972 election by winning 49 out of 50 states for a whopping 520 electoral votes.