› added 10 years ago

106

TIL in 1859 there was a coronal mass ejection so intense it shocked telegraph operators and set their equipment on fire.

Read more science.nasa.gov

via reddit.com

19j4 TIL that during prohibition in the US an exemption was made for whiskey prescribed by a doctor and sold through a pharmacy. The Walgreens pharmacy chain grew from 20 retail stores to almost 500 during this period, from 1920 to 1933
x6XPb TIL that babies prefer speech sounds over other types of non-language sounds (i.e. music) even from birth. So, humans begin their language acquisition with a bias for listening to speech.
oBymE TIL the Bikini swimsuit was introduced by Louis Réard four days after the first nuclear device was detonated over the Bikini Atoll. Réard hoped that his swimsuit's revealing style would create an "explosive commercial and cultural reaction" similar to the social reaction the nuclear explosion.
6Elpl TIL elephants rarely get cancer, thanks to an extra cancer-fighting gene called P53. This gene recognizes dangerous cells and killing them before they become cancerous.
OlBY TIL according to a poll in the year 2000, the Japanese believe that their best invention of the 20th century was instant noodles.