› added 5 years ago

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TIL the best selling single (non religious) book of all time is "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes, selling an estimated 500 million copies. It is also the oldest book on the list, being first published in 1605.

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nWxNo TIL the highest recorded wind speed on earth was 301 MPH during the 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado in Oklahoma. The tornado lasted for 85 minutes and caused $1 billion in damage
B6mW TIL a little old lady (Dorothea Puente) ran a halfway house in Sacramento for the down and out. She murdered 7 of the residents and buried them in the front yard.
XKBk TIL the Chinese government forced prisoners to farm World of Warcraft gold. “There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn’t see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.”
N7ype TIL that the origin of why vampires can't see themselves in a mirror is because mirrors used to be made of polished silver. Which the purity of a pure metal like silver was abhorrent to supernatural creatures.
a8E5o TIL that elephants were once used as executioners in South and Southeast Asia. In India, rogue elephants were trained to carry out executions by crushing, dismembering, or torturing victims with their immense power.