› added 9 years ago

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TIL Mick “Crocodile” Dundee was based on an actual person who survived 56 days in crocodile infested outback Australia. He died in a police shootout after he killed a cop while high on amphetamines.

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9YOW7 TIL 'Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks' painting is quite large - 6'7 x 11'9 - and it took Ilya Repin eleven (!) years to complete it
8aGja TIL of Israel's Law of Return. It dictates that any Jewish person, no matter their country of origin, what language they speak, or how much money they have, can be granted Israeli citizenship they day they arrive in Israel.
Lk9pr TIL King Henry VIII was such a big fan of codpieces (a type of flap or pouch protruding from a man's trousers) that there used to be a wooden statue of him at the Tower of London with a secret mechanism in the floor. When you stepped on the right spot, the royal codpiece would swing forth.
eEnL TIL the rebounding force of a rope breaking in a match of tug of war severed the arm of each of the men at the front
d8bjK TIL There is an enzyme called telomerase which reverses the aging process by replacing the junk DNA, which normally degrades over time, that protects coding DNA, and scientists think it is the key to immortality. Species like jellyfish and lobsters are biologically immortal because of this.