› added 10 years ago

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TIL of “iron harvest”, in which nearly 900 tons of WWI unexploded munitions are recovered each year by Belgian and French farmers after ploughing their fields.

pYdG4 TIL Australia has a public collection programme for funnel-web spiders. The public are asked to catch the deadliest spider in the world (capable of killing a child in 15 minutes, and has fangs that can pierce toenails) and take them to designated points. They are milked for the anti-venom programme.
vPRWr TIL about the well-travelled road effect – a cognitive bias whereby we view frequently travelled routes as taking a shorter time than unfamiliar or less frequently travelled ones.
wZXP TIL that vast amount of high-paying engineering disciplines in the US are overwhelmingly dominated by men, while the not-so-lucrative humanity/social/education disciplines are very much dominated by women; this career self-selection is thought to be behind the male-female pay disparity.
9YvbD TIL that on 24th October 1975, 90% of women in Iceland went on strike and took to the streets, refusing to work, cook, and look after children. The strike was called "Women's Day Off", and helped put Iceland at the forefront of the fight for gender equality. Men came to know it as "The Long Friday".
y1Ae TIL that instead of going to court over a copyright infringement dispute, the CEOs of Southwest Airlines and Stevens Aviation challenged each other to an arm wrestling duel via humorous letters. No lawyers were ever involved, and the men honored the outcome of the match.