› added 11 years ago

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TIL there are no Walmarts in NYC (all 5 boroughs) whatsoever due to political pressure as well as neighborhood, labor and environmental groups and small businesses

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via reddit.com

MeaX7 TIL the last time the British Empire expanded was 1955, when they annexed a tiny rock 300km off the Scottish coast to prevent the Soviets spying on their ballistic missile tests.
DPVD TIL that in 1440 a land sale treaty between the Pope and Florence accidentally left out a small strip of land around Cospaia. The people of the area promptly declared their independence and remained sovereign for nearly 400 years.
4wVw TIL that there’s a “sea organ” built on the coast of Croatia that plays music like an organ when waves crash in and out of it
Y7ped TIL about Mohed Altrad, a French-Syrian billionaire who doesn't know when he was born because his mother was assaulted by the tribal chief and died shortly after the birth. Being a Bedouin he had no access to school. He still obtained a doctorate in computer science in Paris thanks to a scholarship.
O6Z7 TIL a Chernobyl fireman who claimed they didn’t know that the Chernobyl meltdown flames were radioactive, 20 years later said “Of course we knew! If we’d followed regulations, we would never have gone near the reactor. But it was a moral obligation – our duty. We were like kamikaze.”