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TIL that 35,000 tonnes of the steel in the Burj Khalifa was repurposed from the parliament building of the former state of East Germany.

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via reddit.com

v1gG8 TIL that when an animatronic langur infant was used to film wild langurs, the monkeys adopted it--until it was eventually dropped and ceased movement, at which point the monkeys believed it had died and gathered together to mourn the dead infant
rRR61 TIL older parents are more likely to have daughters, which may partially explain why more women go to college.
dr8r TIL a third of Harvard undergraduates are Jews, who only make up 3% of the U.S. population. 17% of Harvard undergraduates are Asians, who only comprise 4% of the population.
BVyk TIL that in the ‘60s at the height of the Cold War, the US continuously flew planes carrying nuclear bombs around the world as a precautionary measure in the event of an attack by the USSR. 5 of these planes crashed, and nuclear contamination resulted in at least 2 instances.
LrKd TIL Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC, faced harassment based on her ethnicity after her design was picked, including presidential candidate Ross Perot calling her an “egg roll”.