› added 42 minutes ago

TIL that 55% of the sugar produced in the US came from sugar beets. In North America, commercial production of sugar from sugar beets started at a farm in 1879 in Alvarado, California.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

Obo7 TIL in 2002 there was a live, 24 hour special on MTV hosted by Courtney Love, who was supposedly given control over what content would air. It ended with her crying on a couch for the last few hours.
0wrVM TIL about Price's Law. In any productive population, the square root of the population generates 50% of the output. (E.g out of 10,000 farmers only 100 produce 50% of the food).
rN1Mx TIL the chemotherapy paclitaxel (Taxol) was first isolated from the bark of the Pacific yew tree. In 1987, anti-cancer effects were seen, but harvesting bark killed the trees. Scientists then raced to (and succeeded) in synthesizing the drug. Approved in 1992, Taxol still treats many cancers today.
eJrJ TIL Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, starred in a Pizza Hut commercial
a8bDo TIL that the New Orleans English accent (commonly known as "yat") is similar to the New York accent due to the influx of people from the Northeast especially from NYC.