› added 3 years ago

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TIL that an off-brand Olympic Games competition was held in July 1980, called the Liberty Bell Classic, in Philadelphia. It was for the countries that boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

NgRE TIL that in 1956 the US government placed beer near a nuclear explosion to see whether it would still be drinkable after a nuclear fallout, it was.
WkRwB TIL that Charles Darwin once found two ground beetles and grabbed one in each hand before seeing a "sacred" crucifix beetle (Panagaeus cruxmajor). Afraid to lose it, he put one of the beetles he had between his teeth to grab the crucifix but the beetle spit acid down his throat and he lost them all.
NXVZN TIL there is a suburb of Chicago called "Wauconda" (pronounced like Wakonda) that set the record for the largest snowball fight in 2005 with nearly 3000 participants, beating the previous record set at a Swiss ski resort.
JYkZk TIL about the dangerous exploitative industry of Cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa. Most of the labor is done by children for very little pay. The demand ever increasing , this mineral fuels the tech industry, cobalt is used for batteries for phones, gadgets and e cars.
7Q1x TIL Steve Jobs was hired to build the first prototype of “Breakout” for Atari. He enlisted the help of Steve Wozniak promising to give him half of the $750 pay. The pair stayed up four days straight to finish the game and were given a bonus because of this. Jobs kept the entire bonus for himself.