› added 7 years ago

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TIL that most stars exist in binary or triple star systems. It is hypothesized that up to 85% of stars are gravitationally bound to another star in a multiple star system. Therefore, solitary stars (such as the Sun) are actually not the norm in the universe, but in fact are a rarity.

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via reddit.com

P9rG TIL a group of 90 gay and heterosexual adults were scanned by Swedish scientists to measure the volume of both hemispheres of their brain. The study showed that structurally the brains of gay men were more like heterosexual women, and gay women more like heterosexual men.
XEYRQ TIL that for 8 years the CIA ran Operation Midnight Climax, brothels in NYC and San Fran where they secretly administered drugs to johns to study the effects.
vAJB TIL in 1888, U.S. President Hayes wrote in his diary: “This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.”
4XWba TIL of Amsterdam Time, UTC +00:20 and used from 1909 until the Nazis invaded in 1940. That made the Netherlands 20 minutes ahead of London. The reason for this offset was that it was centered on the mean solar time of the tower of the Westerkerk Church in Amsterdam and not on Greenwich Mean Time.
7rK8r TIL that Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire co-starred in a movie called Don's Plum in 2001, but the movie was blocked from distribution in the US and Canada because they'd only agreed to star in a "short" film, not a "feature" film.