› added 1 year ago

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Today I learned that the world's largest living organism is a fungus named Armillaria ostoyae, which covers over 2,200 acres in Oregon's Malheur National Forest. It's estimated to be around 2,400 years old and weighs over 600 tons.

Read more opb.org

via reddit.com

8aP5P TIL that in 2009, British PM Gordon Brown hand-wrote a letter of condolence to a mother whose son had died in Afghanistan, in which he misspelled the son's surname. The Sun (a tabloid) wrote a scathing article criticizing his mistake. In this article, the paper misspelled the same name.
4kDpN TIL Aldi Nord also owns the Trader Joe's grocery chain in the United States
7807Z TIL that from 1958 to 2002 it was tradition for the newly elected French President to pardon traffic offenses for the 6-12 months before the election. President Chirac ended the tradition because of the substantial rise in traffic deaths and injuries it caused.
0NjL TIL that in 2007, a Tennessee man on Death Row requested that, instead of a last meal, a pizza be donated to a local homeless person. The request was denied.
wL4xP TIL while many depictions of a heart attack include collapsing or loss of consciousness, these actually aren't common symptoms of it in real life. This causes frequent misunderstanding of the issue and improper care for heart attack sufferers.