› added 6 years ago

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TIL about the ghost village Epecuén (Argentina) and it's sole inhabitant, Pablo Novak. The once touristic town became uninhabitable after a flood slowly consumed it in 1985. The waters began to recede in 2009 and Novak (now 90 years old) returned to the home of his youth to live alone with his dogs.

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oBAmY TIL that in 2011 CIA Operative Raymond Davis was arrested in Pakistan after killing 2 men. A CIA Team coming to his aid was driving on the wrong side of the road and killed another man. Davis was freed after paying $2.4 million in Blood Money while the others avoided arrest and escaped the country
m0gR TIL that Fly Agaric mushrooms, which look like Super Mario Bros. mushrooms, contain a psychoactive chemical that can cause micropsia/macropsia, aka the illusion that objects around you are larger or smaller than they actually are.
moBR TIL the first black-white interracial kiss on American television was on an episode of Star Trek. However, the producers were worried about the show being banned in the South because of it, and tried to shoot alternate versions of the shot. The actors intentionally flubbed those shots.
x6N95 TIL that up to the early 20th century, young boys in the Western world wore dresses. The first time they were allowed to put on trousers was considered a rite of passage.
4kNmR TIL that the largest living organism on Earth is not a blue whale or an elephant, but actually a fungus. Covering over 2,200 acres in Oregon, the Armillaria ostoyae fungus, also known as the Humongous Fungus, is estimated to be between 2,400 and 8,650 years old and weighs over 6,000 tons.