› added 2 years ago

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TIL that in the 1960s, the US roasted a 1440-acre swath of Wisconsin forest with ~10,000 curies of radiation for 6 months in order to determine how it affected the area. Most of the damage was confined to the area directly adjacent to the source, and the area is completely non-hazardous today.

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loBv5 TIL Rodney Mullen only lost one out of 35 competitions in his career as a pro skater.
LkAYQ TIL the diagnostic criteria for sexual disorders were tested on only three patients before being added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, in 1980. No field trials were ever conducted.
7rVx7 TIL the New Cult Awareness Network is owned and operated by the Church of Scientology after they sued the original organization out of existence in 1996.
nWad7 TIL About the search for R. Sørnes' 4th astronomical clock. Best described as mechanical real-time models of the solar system, the self-taught farmer son from Norway - rebuffed by clock-makers in his youth - made some of the most complicated clocks in existence.
Vldm TIL There was so much fighting on the Normandy beaches on D-Day, that it is estimated about 4% of the sand is actually shrapnel