› added 7 years ago

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TIL of the Gympie Gympie or suicide plant Dendrocnide moroides, its hairs can penetrate protective gear. It has a crippling neurotoxin that can last from days to years. Brushing your hand against it can make you throw up from the pain. Using it as toilet paper has made people shoot themselves

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NXlXJ TIL slavery was practiced in present-day Romania from the founding of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in 13th-14th century, until it was abolished in stages during the 1840s and 1850s. Most of the enslaved people were of Romany ethnicity.
v19mj TIL that 'nose art', or the practice of painting pin-ups or cartoons on the front of war planes, died out in the early 1970s when Air Force Chief of Staff John Ryan called for a moratorium on the practice. It's been quietly making a comeback in recent years, albeit now strictly controlled.
rA0M TIL a homeless girl went to Harvard. She attended 12 schools in 12 years; lived out of garbage bags among pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers. She was accepted to more than 20 universities before choosing Harvard.
O8KX TIL that George Bush’s Wikipedia page is the number one most controversial Wikipedia page as determined by the amount of times that someone changed something on the page only to have someone else come and change it back to the previous wording.
PYlPn TIL Charlie Chaplin was given a 12-minute standing ovation at the Academy Awards gala in 1972, the longest in the Academy's history.