› added 7 years ago

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TIL it was assumed Amelia Earhart died 80 years ago(July 2, 1937) after crashing her plane in an attempt to fly around the globe and her remains were lost to deep waters.Due to a skeleton found on an island, an aircraft recovery group now believes she may have lived months as a castaway

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1aOmX TIL that the first pocket calculator [Curta (Type I) mechanical calculator] was invented by the Jewish inventor Curt Herzstark in Buchenwald concentration camp during WWII. The Nazis planned to make a present of it to Hitler as a gift after the successful end of the war.
6E7eQ TIL Coca-Cola is sometimes used medically to dissolve 'phytobezoars' - large indigestible balls of material in the digestive tract. It works by dissolving material that otherwise would not be broken down.
4Brb TIL there are only 40 “LEGO Master Model Builders” in the world who get to build LEGOs for a living; there is also a “Master Builder Academy” where you can prep for a multi-round competition for the job.
Me7bK TIL that arguably the person credited with saving the most lives in human history is WWI chemical weapons scientist, Fritz Haber. His work directly lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands during the war, while accidentally saving billions from starvation by developing a way to convert N2 to NH3.
VJ04 TIL new research indicates the asteroid that killed the Dinosaurs did so, not primarily due to dust blocking out the sun, but by ejecting ~500 cubic miles of tiny glass spherules at near escape velocity. Upon falling to earth they incinerated nearly all surface life in a matter of minutes.