› added 8 years ago

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TIL more than 40 years of original Cracked magazine archives had to be destroyed due to possible contamination after the anthrax attacks of 2001.

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kOnNE TIL nudibranchs (sea slugs) can steal the sting of their prey. They do this my eating the tentacles of a jellyfish for example and storing the stinging cells for later use.
rRW0w TIL that Abraham Lincoln was challenged to a duel in 1842. As the challenged party, he would have the right to select the weapons used. He accepted the challenge and chose broadswords "of the largest size" in order to take advantage of his superior reach.
Rbe1 TIL a Hungarian psychologist wrote a book on how to raise a genius. He proposed his ideas to a teacher. They married and raised three chess grandmasters, two of them became record-breakers and one even became the first female to beat the top ranked male (Gary Kasporov).
loD6A TIL that because the UK Royal Navy's Astute class nuclear powered submarines can purify their own air and water and run on nuclear fuel, that the endurance is only limited to 90 days due to breakfast storage capacity for 18,000 sausages and 4200 Weetabix
p8rK8 TIL about "Brazilian Schindler"; Souza Dantas, an ambassador from Brazil in nazi-occupied France in 1940's, risked his life giving visas to hundreds of jews and others. Against the will of the Brazilian government at the time, he saved around 800 people from certain death.