› added 6 years ago

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TIL General Electric is the only company remaining from the original Dow Jones index of 1896.

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via reddit.com

XybE TIL that astronaut Alan Shepard peed himself minutes before becoming the first American in space.
w08o TIL: A drilling company in Louisiana accidentally caused a sinkhole in a lake. The resultant whirlpool sucked in the drilling platform, eleven barges, many trees and 65 acres of the surrounding terrain.
NXnO8 TIL that Norman Rockwell’s painting 'Thanksgiving picture' (or 'I'll be home for Christmas') was actually called 'Freedom from Want'. Part of his 'Four Freedoms' series, it was inspired by a speech of FDR. It featured members of his own family as well as their cook who was was serving the turkey.
8JYZ TIL multitasking is a myth. What we call multitasking is actually ‘switch-tasking.’ There is actually a stop/start process that occurs in the brain when we switch between tasks. This process causes “more mistakes, and over time it can be energy sapping.”
BgrOL TIL that in 1946, the Argentinian government imported 50 beavers in an attempt to start a fur trade. There are now 200,000 and they are threatening over 39 million acres of forest.