› added 8 years ago

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TIL that when you turn 100 in Japan, the Prime Minister sends you a silver cup to celebrate. So many people are turning 100 that they had to find a way to make cheaper cups.

Read more japantimes.co.jp

via ift.tt

BgrDx TIL a significant part of the local economy of Kinmen County is making high quality chef's knives from the over 1 million artillery shells fired on the island in the 1950s. Shells filled with propaganda leaflets instead of explosives landed whole, leaving tons of high quality steel lying around.
PY1EE TIL "the Blight" - a plague that destroyed all plant life in the movie Interstellar - was somewhat based on Raoultella planticola bacterium which in the 1990s was genetically modified to destroy plants and had potential to cause mass extinction
9Y4AM TIL that Apple support told customers that experienced problems with their Apple III to lift it up and drop it. It actually worked.
BrVxd TIL Stephen King's 1974 novel, Carrie, was rejected by 30 publishers before Doubleday bought it and paid him a $2,500 advance. The hardcover sold only 13,000 copies, but Signet bought the paperback rights for $400,000, finally allowing King to quit teaching and become a full-time writer.
yVoEw TIL: In 2021, a 30-year-old Brazilian man was fishing with two friends at a lake in Brazil, when the group was attacked by bees. The man and his friends jumped into the lake to escape the bees, but the Brazilian man drowned and was partially eaten by piranhas; his friends survived.