› added 10 months ago

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TIL that with a GDP of ~$780 Billion, Manhattan would have the 22nd largest national GDP in the world if it were a country. Out of 213. That's bigger than Sweden.

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Br8By TIL about Aleksey Maresyev, a pilot who was shot down in Nazi territory, lost the use of his legs, and crawled for eighteen days before returning to Soviet territory. His legs were then amputated. Nevertheless, within a year he was flying again on prosthetic legs.
N71L8 TIL gorillas usually weigh between 300-500 pounds (136-227 kg), with the heaviest gorilla ever recorded massing 589 pounds (267 kg), and the most overweight captive gorilla only ever reached 683 pounds (310 kg). There is no such thing as an "800 pound gorilla," it never existed.
6xNQ TIL the way Helsinki survived WW2. In 1944 the USSR began a massive air attack on the city to force Finland to leave the war. Finns used fires and searchlights to trick Soviet bombers into dropping bombs outside the city. Russian diplomats were surprised to find an intact Helsinki after the war.
grrj7 TIL that Mushrooms have their own language. A professor at the University of the West of England found in his lab that the electrical signals of four species of fungi pulse in patterns that are similar in structure to human languages.
BvYk TIL potatoes absorb Wi-Fi signals the same way people do, and are used to test/improve internet signals on airplanes.