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TIL that the Kingdom of Portugal and the Portuguese Republic were founded on the same day (October 5, the Kingdom being founded by the Treaty of Zamora and the Republic being founded by the 1910 revolution).

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gkX7 TIL that, when Genghis Khan died in 1227, he ordered his burial site to be kept a secret. To this end, his heirs slaughtered anyone who set eyes on his funeral procession. They buried him in an unmarked grave and to this day no one has found him.
nWmN7 TIL National Geographic editor Bill Garrett was fired from the magazine in 1990 because he wanted to publish more controversial features that raised production costs and stories about AIDS, Exxon Valdez oil spill were published under his direction
PYeQG TIL 14 year old Nathan Zohner got 43 out of 50 of his classmates to vote on banning Dihydrogen Monoxide for his science fair project, wanting to prove the use of true facts can lead the ignorant public to false conclusions. He won first price.
QJP1a TIL that despite infamously campaigning on "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," Alabama governor George Wallace later renounced segregationism, publicly apologized to the black community, and appointed record numbers of African Americans to state positions and his cabinet.
jRgj TIL Soviet pseudoscientist Lysenko promoted Marxist theories in agriculture like “there will be no ‘class warfare’ among plants of the same species, so seeds can be planted close together and will grow in harmony.” The adoption of these ideas in China caused crop failure and millions of deaths.