› added 10 years ago

301

TIL that Germans killed an estimated 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians in concentration camps

Read more ushmm.org

via reddit.com

rNmgW TIL a population bottleneck occurred in human evolution about 70,000 years ago, and one theory for why this occurred is a supervolcano eruption in Indonesia. It caused a volcanic winter, which resulted in a drop of the global mean surface temperature by 3–5 °C.
grB0A TIL that the wave shaped colorful blob of toothpaste some toothpastes are known for are called a "nurdle". And toothpaste companies have sued each other over its usage.
eppKk TIL in 1972 a traveling circus set up in the village of Uquakwa, IL. Overnight, their elephant was tethered to a tree in the park. Lightning struck and killed the elephant. The panicked Circus owners packed up all of their gear, and scurried out of town, leaving the 6500 lb dead Pachyderm behind.
LkJYP TIL that without one of the first error handling scripts developed by NASA's Margaret Hamilton the onboard moon landing system would have experienced a critical error just 3 minutes before touchdown
E1w6x TIL that when Helium is cooled close to absolute zero, it becomes a superfluid that flows without friction, and behaves in a similar manner to the event horizon of a black hole