› added 9 years ago

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TIL the word idiot was coined by the ancient Greeks to describe, contemptuously, those people who, even though eligible, did not participate in politics.

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9YQN6 TIL of Eric Lomax, a British ex-POW who was captured in 1942 by Japanese forces. Many years after the war, he tracked down the Japanese man who had tortured him, and forgave him.
APpg TIL Iggy Azalea came up with her stage name using the porn star formula. Iggy being her dog’s name, and azalea being the street she grew up on.
wLP0W TIL that if you add 250ml of ethanol to 250ml of water, you get less than 500ml of liquid. This is because strong hydrogen bonding draws the different molecules closer together, and because ethyl molecules interfere with any open spaces in the water, causing them to pack closer together.
k8Xd TIL a man died while shooting a saguaro cactus with a shotgun when a 4 foot long arm he shot off fell on top of him.
74E7 TIL The Irish once had vast political and military influence in south America, examples include Irishmen founding the Argentine and Uruguayan navies, an Irishman served as the military Governor of Chile and Irishmen served as the Aide-de-Camp’s to leaders such as Simon Bolivar and José de San Martín