› added 9 years ago

97

TIL The International Space Station was sold as an $8 billion program. It ended up costing $100 billion.

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GYRP7 TIL that West Africans inherited 8% of their DNA from a “ghost” species, which helps protect them from cancer
LQX70 TIL the earliest existing record of a telescope was a 1608 patent submitted to the government in the Netherlands by Middelburg spectacle maker Hans Lipperhey. The actual inventor is unknown but word of it spread through Europe. Galileo heard about it and, in 1609, built his own version.
EvAP TIL South Africa is the only country to have ever developed its own nuclear weapons and then voluntarily dismantled them.
BrVvK TIL that most Buddhists do not believe in God. Although they respect and look up to the Buddha, they do not believe he was a god but they worship him as a form of respect.
loOQr TIL that the longest-serving federal judge in the US is 97, has been on the bench for 52 years, and was appointed by Lyndon Johnson