› added 11 years ago

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TIL that SOS doesn’t mean “save our ship” or “save our souls.” SOS doesn’t actually stand for anything at all and is used simply because of how easy it is to remember.

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W7NGN TIL in 2007 two Americans re-discovered Pure Nacional cacao trees thought to have been completely wiped out by disease in the early 20th century. The ancient Nacional varietal was cultivated more than 5,000 years ago, and is thought to produce the world’s most exquisite (and expensive) chocolate.
b6PXp TIL about Violet Jessop who not only survived the sinking of the Titanic and her sister ship Britannic but was also on board the Olympic when it collided with another ship
KYG4G TIL 12-yr-old Francesca Lewis was the sole survivor of a plane crash against the side of a Panamanian volcano that killed the 3 other people on board: her friend, her friend's dad & the pilot. She spent 52 hours in the jungle alone, with no food & both her arm & neck fractured, before being rescued.
DLGp TIL that public hangings at the West Virginia State Penitentiary were stopped in 1931 when a prisoner was decapitated by the hanging process
DQePP TIL a German scientist named Alfred Wegener was ridiculed in 1912 for advancing the idea that the continents were adrift. Ridiculed as having “wandering pole plague.” or “Germanic pseudo­-science” and accused Wegener of toying with the evidence to spin himself into “a state of auto-intoxication."