› added 8 years ago

176

TIL A Chemistry Ph.D. student turned her thesis into a comic so that her friends and family could understand it better.

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GY5ng TIL that Queen still performed in apartheid South Africa when the majority of bands refused to, and was by far the largest band to do so. They were subsequently placed on the United Nations' artist blacklist.
gMJVA TIL that after Reagan saw the nuclear war film THE DAY AFTER (1983) he wrote in his diary, "It’s very effective & left me greatly depressed. [We have] to do all we can to have a deterrent & to see there is never a nuclear war." He later said it directly inspired the INF Treaty with the USSR.
loyxB TIL that asbestos is not banned in the United States. A proposed ban was shot down by the 5th circuit court in 1991 because the cost was between $450 and $800 million and would only save around "200 lives in a 13 year timeframe".
6E57J TIL In Thailand, it was considered a capital offense punishable by death if someone touched the queen. in 1880, The queen drowned when her royal boat capsized on the way to the Palace. The many witnesses to the accident did not dare to touch the queen while she was drowning.
5Vg6n TIL the board game "Settlers of Catan" was created by a dental technician, Klaus Teuber. It was so popular he retired to become a game designer. He went on to win Germany's Game of the Year 4 times.