› added 11 years ago

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TIL 50 richest Chinese Congress delegates control $94.7 billion, while top 50 US congress only have $1.6B. US politicians are “paupers” by Chinese standards.

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gvRA TIL Dexter Holland, the lead singer of The Offspring, has a PhD in Molecular Biology, his own hot sauce brand, an Airline Transport Pilot license, and a Flight Inspector certification.
loE9B TIL that in 1666, the entire English village of Eyam, when contaminated with the bubonic plague, agreed to quarantine itself, essentially sentencing themselves to death, instead of fleeing to other villages. They did it to stop the disease from spreading. Some 260 villagers died.
rNJGy TIL Railway Post Office cars sorted and delivered mail on moving trains, using hooks to catch mailbags without stopping. The last service ended in 1977, but remnants still exist along decommissioned tracks. At its peak, 9,000 trains covered 200,000 miles of mail routes.
4km1w TIL of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, which is larger than Mercury, has a liquid metal core, and is presumed to have more subsurface water than all of Earth's oceans combined
PYgJw TIL that the game Snakes and Ladders originated in ancient India and was called Moksha Patam. The morality lesson of the game was that a person can attain salvation (Moksha) through doing good, whereas by doing evil, one will inherit rebirth to lower forms of life.