› added 1 year ago

35

TIL Vladimir Pravik was one of the first firefighters to reach the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26th, 1986. The radiation was so strong that it changed his eye color from brown to blue. He died 15 days later.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

D1oQv TIL in 2017, in Scotland, two students entered an art gallery and, finding an empty table, placed a pineapple there to see if people would take it for art. When they returned 4 days later, the pineapple was covered with a glass protection.
6Eeel TIL that Senator Daniel Webster turned down two offers to be vice president by William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor because he thought the office was a dead-end position. Both these presidents went on to die in office.
LkayQ TIL: If you do die in space, your body will not decompose in the normal way, since there is no oxygen. If you were near a source of heat, your body would mummify; if you were not, it would freeze. If your body was sealed in a space suit, it would decompose, but only for as long as the oxygen lasted
xMnB TIL astronomer Ptolemy thought that the gods, out of curiosity/boredom, would peer down at the earth from between the spheres; when this happened, stars would slip out of this gap, flashing towards the earth. Shooting stars meant that the gods are now paying attention to whatever you would wish for.
oB44R TIL Australia has the highest cigarette tax rates in the world, with a 12.5% yearly excise being applied since 2010. This will continue until 2020, when the average packet of cigarettes is projected cost about AU$40 (USD$30). This compares to about $6-8 in the US and the EU.