› added 7 years ago

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TIL that in the past 100 years, parts of Houston have sunk by up to 12 feet due to aquifer depletion. This subsidence messes with drainage channels and makes the city prone to flooding.

Read more houstonchronicle.com

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xvE5 TIL in WWII Japan used underwater manned suicide torpedos called Kaiten to destroy American ships. If they were successful, they blew up. If they missed, they sank to the bottom of the ocean.
ANgmn TIL approximately 3% of the population has experienced psychosis
NXEQ8 TIL that because Paris is so romanticised in eastern cultures, travellers to the city - especially from Japan and China - can end up experiencing an intense culture shock that can cause anything between vomiting to actual hallucinations. The effect has its own name - Paris Syndrome
gM96D TIL- during the Krakatoa eruptions and resulting tsunamis, a javanese lighthouse keeper refused to leave his post, survived after the lighthouse collapsed, lost his wife and child, and built a makeshift light just a few hours afterward so that ships wouldn't run aground.
LkOmP TIL after journalist Paulette Cooper wrote an article criticizing the Church of Scientology, they tried to get her committed to a psychiatric ward by writing her name and number on street walls, subscribing her to pornographic mail lists, and faking bomb threats with her stationary and fingerprints.