› added 8 years ago

94

TIL Emma Thompson is the only person in history to win an Oscar for both acting and writing.

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1AN4 TIL that in 2001, a ten-year-old named Laura Buxton released a balloon with her name and address in the hopes of finding a pen pal. The balloon traveled 140 miles before coming down and was found by an almost-ten-year old also named Laura Buxton. They share a number of other similarities.
JY4ok TIL that after its infamous explosion in 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant reported a fire in 1991; and it wasn’t until the year 2000 that the power station was fully shut down.
QJNVX Finland’s Lapland is home to over twenty thousand reindeer, but with thousands killed every year due to vehicle collisions in the dark, herders now cover the animals’ antlers with a harmless fluorescent paint that glows in the light of oncoming cars but is otherwise invisible. both female and male reindeer in Lapland grow antlers, which they shed in the spring, so a new coating is reapplied in the fall.
6967W TIL that Bill Withers intended to write more lirycs instead of repeating "I know" as a placeholder for 26 times in his famous song "Ain't no sunshine", but other musicians advised him to leave it like that so it stayed.
neLAd TIL In 2005 Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili fired all of the traffic police in his country, cutting 25,000 to 30,000 police from the payroll to fight corruption. He also increased the minimum weekly salary from $30-$40 to around $400 for the new officers.