› added 9 years ago

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TIL Helium is a non-renewable resource, the US used to stockpile it, and we may run out eventually

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b6ZR4 TIL of the Order of Malta Passport. It's the rarest passport in the world and is only issued to a few hundred people.
dy0Z TIL that Stephen King wrote Carrie on an old typewriter while living in a trailer. He threw away the first 3 pages thinking he had written “the world’s all time loser.” His wife fished the pages out and pushed him to finish it. It turned out to be his first published novel.
jVEM TIL, 30 years ago on this day Sept. 26th 1983. A Russian Colonel named Stanislav Petrov, now known as The man who saved the world, averted WW3. A Soviet early warning satellite detected nuclear launches from the US. Petrov trusted his instincts that the computers were malfunctioning and did nothing.
aw7Ro TIL of Fazal Din, a British Indian Army soldier who was impaled by the sword of a Japanese officer . He pulled out the sword, killed the officer who stabbed him and another enemy soldier, destroyed an entire enemy position, and walked 25 yards with a hole in his chest to deliver his report.
epMAb TIL Highway hypnosis is an altered mental state in which an automobile driver can drive lengthy distances and respond adequately to external events with no recollection of consciously having done so.