› added 11 years ago

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TIL Saint Philosophus, before he was martyred, was tied to a bed by his persecutors. They then sent in a prostitute, in an attempt to take away his chastity before he died. With no other options, he bit off his tongue and spat it at the prostitute, who was so horrified that she ran from the room.

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Y78ax TIL One of the earliest archaeological evidence for Confucius' Analects comes from a tombsite dating to ca. 50 BC. in Pyongyang, which was discovered from an accidental leak in 2003. North Korea never released Pyongyang Analects and the other ancient text in China was damaged by fire
Rd69 TIL the Soviet government advised those working on the Chernobyl disaster to drink half a glass of vodka for every two hours in Chernobyl. The radiation was supposed to accumulate in the thyroid glands and the vodka was thought to help clean out the radiation.
QN0wM TIL that the 'vaquita' is currently the most endangered cetacean. There are presumably only 10 vaquita's left in the world.
MeDv8 TIL large ships use sea water as ballast; the water contains all sorts of living organisms which when released, results in the spread of invasive species around the world. This has an economic impact of billions of dollars a year to the US alone.
NPm1 TIL that during an olympic gold hockey game involving Canada, so many people viewed it on tv that there were massive fluctuations in water pressure during the time between periods from people using the bathroom simultaneously