› added 13 years ago

160

TIL that the ratio of insects to humans is 200,000,000:1

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epbdg TIL the modern ankle monitor used to track prisoners was invented by a judge named Jack Love. An avid comic book fan, he was inspired after the villain Kingpin places a radar cuff on Spider-Man to monitor his whereabouts. This fictional device gave him the idea for the real-life tracking technology.
AQ9o TIL that during WW2 an American pilot fell 20,000 feet without a parachute before smashing through the glass roof of a train station. He survived and lived to 82.
1bad TIL that there is a huge amount of land in France that was so damaged by war practically nothing lives there.
VMN4Z TIL before Liam Neeson was cast as Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Mel Gibson expressed interest in the part.
OVwX TIL there are 15 surviving autographs from William Shakespeare. None are spelled the same and none are spelled the way we do today.