› added 12 years ago

72

TIL that when the Tsar Bomba (the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated) was tested, the fireball reached nearly as high as the altitude of the release plane, and it’s yield (50 mt) was about half the maximum yield of the bomb’s design (100 Mt).

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ZwXB TIL that during the Qin Dynasty in China, government officials would use fingerprint analysis at a crime scene to help identify potential perpetrators, as they knew that no two people have identical fingerprints
m18vY TIL that, in 1996, workers at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station found and subsequently decontaminated four orphaned, mildly-radioactive kittens.
69eRZ TIL that between 1895 and 1908 the population of the Belgian Congo declined by between 2 and 13 million due to colonial brutality and diseases caused by colonialism.
x6l8o TIL the total number of gifts given in The Twelve Days of Christmas is 364, the number of days in a year excluding Christmas itself.
Yp16A TIL Ancient Veggies Were Small, Unpalatable. Ancient tomatoes were the size of berries; potatoes were no bigger than peanuts. Corn was a wild grass, its tooth-cracking kernels borne in clusters as small as pencil erasers