› added 4 years ago

77

TIL that the Soviets were the first to land on Mars

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E1Mwo TIL that the guns of the HMS Belfast, moored on the River Thames, are permanently aimed at a London Gateway Services, a motorway service station some 11.7 miles away
rbKx TIL in a poll of 813 UK shoppers, 95% said their top reason for buying organic food was to avoid pesticides, despite the fact that organic farmers can and do indeed utilize pesticides and fungicides to protect their crops.
80jX TIL the first commercially successful typewriter was built by an arms manufacturer and looked like a sewing machine
w4r7 TIL When the Belgians pulled out of the Congo in 1960, they left some 30 Congolese university graduates to fill over 4,000 administrative posts. This action left virtually no one who knew how to manage a country that size and dramatically furthered mass unrest.
GYK0j TIL Nutmeg contains a hallucinogenic compound called myristicin. You can get high with doses of 15 g of grounded nutmeg, and the effect include, hallucinations, dizziness and memory impairment of the trip. This is why it was part of prison culture in the middle of the twentieth century.