› added 6 years ago

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TIL an estimated 100,000 German Jewish military personnel served in the German Army during World War I, of whom 12,000 were killed in action, and that later on Nazis tried to suppress the Jewish contribution and even tried to blame them for Germany's defeat

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MeLO7 Today I learned about Serica, a silk-producing country in East Asia whose existence the Ancient Greek and Romans were aware of. It was probably modern northern China.
O5m4 TIL The ceremony of the keys at the Tower of London has gone on almost uninterrupted for 700 years. It was late once during WWII due to a number of bombs hitting the guard room, knocking the guards and Yeoman warder over. The officer in charge personally wrote a letter to the king to apologise.
MPPB TIL when it was revealed that Richard Bachman was a pen name used by Stephen King, about the author blurbs on the books said that Bachman died suddenly of “cancer of the pseudonym, a rare form of schizonomia”.
d8OMZ TIL Roman roads were named after the censor that constructed or reconstructed them. Each time a road had been reworked, e.g. (re/paved or rerouted) it will be renamed. If the road was older than the censor or of unknown origin, it took the name of its destination or the region that it mainly passed.
6ENBm TIL about the "Drinkable Book". Not only is it an instruction manual on how to filter water but it also has removable pages that are coated in silver nanoparticles that can be used to filter unclean water itself.