› added 11 years ago

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TIL that American company Bechtel took over the privatization of water in Bolivia in 1999 because the Bolivian government was too corrupt. Water prices subsequently raised from $5/month to $20/month for an income of $1000/year.

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pYWp8 TIL that salamanders tend to live inside rotting logs. When these logs are burned as firewood, the salamanders try to escape. This led to beliefs that salamanders were born from flames, or had abilities to resist and quench fires.
QJ80e TIL a chemical compound was found to make human "invisible" to mosquitoes, instead of repelling them
VQPB TIL that fatherless homes produce: 71% of our high school drop-outs, 85% of the kids with behavioral disorders, 90% of our homeless and runaway children, 75% of the adolescents in drug abuse programs, and 85% of the kids in juvenile detention facilities
XEyLk TIL that the Catholic Church owns 177 million acres of land making it the largest non-governmental land owner in the world.
RA04 TIL that Adolf Hitler scribbled a prototype for a car in 1932, sitting at a restaurant table in Munich, which would later go on to become the immensely successful design for a car we now know as the Volkswagen Beetle.