› added 11 years ago

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TIL The VA lobotomized thousands of WW2 veterans that suffered from PTSD.

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kJG9m TIL In 1884, one of the first roller coasters, Switchback Railway in Coney Island, had a top speed of 6mph and cost five cents to ride.
KOw64 TIL that Charles Joughin, Chief Baker on Titanic, helped passengers board life boats (forcibly boarding those who thought it safer to stay on the ship), drank a 1/2 bottle of liqueur, then threw chairs overboard for use as flotation devices, rode the side of the ship down while it sunk, and survived
7EKr TIL that after 12 hours of continuous pain, a woman with no medical training successfully performed a C-section on herself with a kitchen knife and three glasses of hard liquor.
W7evY TIL that, when considering the area of land only and excluding areas of water, Brazil is actually larger than the contiguous USA by a decent margin, and China is substantially larger than both by the same metric.
raEd TIL that thanks to relatively few traffic lights, lots of roundabouts, and a very intensive driver training requirement, the UK has the lowest road death (per capita) of any country in the developed world.