› added 13 years ago

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TIL Batman could exist in real life, but only for a few years. This is due to the incredible physical demands being Batman requires.

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R7bK9 TIL in 532 AD 30,000 rioters were killed and half of Constantinople was destroyed in the Nika Riots, over a conflict with chariot racing.
01nL TIL that despite all the waste spewed into the Ganges, bacteriophages act as a “disinfectant,” devouring on organic materials and bacteria and killing them within 30 min of introduction to the river. This self-purifying quality leads to oxygen levels 25 times higher than any other river in the world
wMw6 TIL photographer Mathew Brady captured over 7000 photos of the US Civil War (including the portrait of Lincoln that would be used for the $5 bill), which have become the most important visual documentation of the period. He died in debt after the US gov’t did not buy his master-copies after the war.
VBVB8 TIL that Thuy Trang, the actress who played the original yellow Power Ranger, was one of the Vietnamese boat people who left Vietnam on a boat after the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War
Agrg TIL that South Africa was largely responsible for the global prohibition of Marijuana in 1925, based on one British doctors racist opinion from 1908 of how it affected Hindu laborers.