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TIL that Purgatory in the Divine Comedy (1320) is a mountain situated on the opposite end of the world to Jerusalem, and Dante and Virgil reach it by going to the centre of the Earth (via Hell) and up the other side. This is because the Medieval world, and hence Dante, knew the Earth was a sphere.

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1nBP TIL that in the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, in order to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
woEO6 TIL Brazil, despite being a country with no colonial territories, actually had its own overseas territory shortly after becoming independent. A naval base located in what was the Portuguese Congo/Cabinda Province, with the aim of suppressing the Atlantic slave trade.
e0nxb TIL throughout the 1970’s the Grateful Dead used a 32ft tall PA system that could deliver perfect sound 600ft away. It had to be hauled in caravans of semi trucks and took 4 hours to assemble. They called it “The Wall of Sound”.
KOK7a [TIL] This guy 20 campaigns in which he conquered 32 nations and won 65 pitched battles, during which he conquered or overran more territory than any other commander in history
grRw7 TIL of The Trimates: three female primatologists (Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas) who studied chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans respectively. Chosen and funded by anthropologist Louis Leaky, he viewed their work as key to understanding human evolution