› added 9 years ago

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TIL two men para-glided off of the top of Mt. Everest, touching down over 15 miles away in only 42 minutes and avoiding the potentially deadly 3 day descent.

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Z8dwQ TIL George Lucas named Tosche Station on Tatooine after Dave Toschi, the San Francisco Police Department’s chief investigator in the Zodiac Killer case
xVl91 TIL of the Peanut Butter Hearings of 1959, which took place after the FDA revealed that leading peanut butter products only contained 75% peanuts to cut costs. This enraged the public, who began referring to these products as “peanut-flavored face cream” and standard of at least 90% peanuts was set.
e0D9E TIL of the Knights of Malta, a sovereign entity (part of the U.N. General Assembly) with 13,500 knights, 40,000 doctors and a further 80,000 volunteers. They have only 2 official citizens, but they still issue passports, coins and postage stamps despite having no physical land or territory
W7gVY TIL that planets can appear in retrograde motion to the earth for some time. TIAL that Mars does that every 26 months, Venus every 18 months, Mercury 3-4x a year, Jupiter, every 9 months, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune every year-ish
awgdA TIL Americans spent about $150b on cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and meth in 2016, about the same amount they spent on alcohol.