› added 6 years ago

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TIL after Robert Bork was rejected by Congress as a Supreme Court judge after a highly controversial set of confirmation hearings, "Bork" was added to the dictionary as a verb whose meaning is "To prevent a person from being appointed to public office by means of systemic vilification or defamation"

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epkoJ TIL fine particles of dust can explode and rapidly combust, even innocuous objects like flour or corn starch, due to the very large surface area of dust relative to its mass. One incident at a "color party" throwing colored corn starch resulted in 15 dead and 498 suffering from burns.
W7wV4 [TIL] Sack of Mecca is when the city of Mecca was raided during the Hajj by a claimant to the title Mahdi (Messiah like individual)
x6eb5 TIL about a rare and possible fatal condition called Defecation Syncope caused by pushing too hard and not breathing properly when pooping.
PYy5Z TIL a Guatemalan boy saw soldiers come into his village and murder his parents along with the rest of the village, was adopted and raised in an abusive household by one of the men who massacred the villagers, and later gave testimony that sent the killer to prison with a 6,000 year sentence
PP4O TIL the only FDA approved manufacturer of coral snake antivenom in North America suddenly stopped producing it in 2003, leaving dwindling supplies that mostly expired in 2012. If you get bit by one now, chances are you are shit out of luck.