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TIL: In the 2004 Afghan election, the government instructed illiterate voters to draw an icon for their candidate, but both progressives and traditionalists were represented by drawing a book. One was meant to represent secular education, the other the Quran.

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LkOL0 TIL American soldiers in the Pacific theater of WW2 always used passwords containing the letter 'L' due to Japanese mispronunciation, a word such as lollapalooza would be used and upon hearing the first two syllables come back as 'rorra' would "open fire without waiting to hear the rest".
N7Yv8 TIL The Military Industrial Complex Created Caning to Preserve Food - Napoleon Offered Prize for New Food Preparation to Support Russian Invasion
rRbN0 TIL about a group of unsung professional heroes in the medical field.
DLkr TIL the last Emperor of Ethiopia was deposed in 1975, almost 1000 years after the first Emperor was crowned.
kmB7 TIL that in 2006, Guy Goma showed up at the BBC for a job interview as a computer technician. He was mistaken for Guy Kewney, a computer expert, and put on live TV to discuss a judicial verdict. Despite his amazing performance faking his way through the segment, he did not get the job.