› added 6 years ago

96

TIL that The War of 1812 was America's most unpopular war and that it generated more intense opposition than any other war in the nation's history, including the war in Vietnam.

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WybY TIL Secr. of Treasury Andrew Mellon raised federal revenue by lowering the tax rate: from 77% to 24% on the highest earners and from 4% to 0.5% on the lowest
pYw5G TIL that when they test DNA from hair, they actually analyse the root skin attached to the hair. The hair itself contains no DNA and is useless in the analysis.
loG47 TIL that a significant contribution to the 2003 NE blackout was the tendency of high-voltage lines to sag under high current. As one power line sagged, touched an unmaintained tree and faulted, the load on remaining lines increased, causing a cascade of sagging onto trees and faulting.
8a0mX TIL that a jiffy is an actual unit of time and in quantum physics can be defined as the time it takes for light to travel one fermi, which is approximately the size of a nucleon
nWRY TIL that if the Earth stopped spinning, the oceans would migrate to the poles, creating one equatorial megacontinent and two polar oceans, submerging nearly all of the northern U.S., Europe, Canada and Russia.