› added 4 years ago

82

TIL that the U.S. was one of the original 17 who signed the Treaty of the Metre (Convention du Mètre) and given two of the original forty cylinders that is know as the International Protoype Kilogram

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yQ08 TIL that in the summer of 2004 a man named Richard Clam waited 3 days for the shotgun seat of a helicopter giving grand canyon tours only to commit suicide by opening the door at 4000 feet and jumping from the aircraft.
OoJaX TIL:Pinbal was banned from the early 1940s to the mid-1970s in most of America's big cities. It was a game of chance, not skill, and so it was a form of gambling. In fact, one of the key parts of pinball: the flippers, weren't invented until 1947, five years after most of the bans were implemented.
X0LRj TIL that "La Catedral" was a luxurious prison designed to house Pablo Escobar, the leader of the Medellin cartel in Colombia. Inside, they hosted extravagant parties.
v8rD TIL Carl Johnson was the Director of the Jefferson County, CDPHE. He reported that soil around the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant contained 44 times more plutonium than the government claimed. In 1977 he reported higher-than-average rates of cancer among the local people. In 1981 he was fired.
8eMP4 TIL barnacles have the largest penises; 8 times the side their body.