› added 6 years ago

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TIL In 1968 the Ford Motor Co. set the value of a life at $200,000. When performing a risk/benefit analysis deciding if fixing a major fuel tank issue was worth paying $11 per car ($137M), or instead paying 200k per death (Est $50M). They didn't fix it, Which nearly ended up costing $145M in court.

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eyOE TIL At the end of cleaning up Chernobyl, three men were forced to travel to the top of reactor 3’s chimney to hang a red flag. Due to high radiation levels, the entire operation had to be timed to last no more than 9 minutes. Their reward was a bottle of pepsi (a luxury at the time) and a day off
X0Br8 TIL about the Iguanodon featured on the Maidstone coat of arms, honouring the discovery of its fossilised remains in 1834 at Bensted’s Quarry, which helped reaffirm the hypothesis that such remains belonged to prehistoric animals.
Z8wBp TIL "Of the 4 percent of the 250 000 to 300 000 known edible plant species, only 150 to 200 are used by humans. Only three - rice, maize and wheat - contribute nearly 60 percent of calories and proteins obtained by humans from plants."
X0gKX TIL that according to the bible, Adam, Eve, and a bunch of their descendants lived for several centuries, some even getting close to a millennium.
5VxDp TIL that the conical hood is called a Capirote that is originally used by Catholic Penitants dating its use as far back to the Inquisition times before it was appropriated by a certain Wizard Klub. It is still being used today by penitants in parts of Spain Mexico and Guatemala during Holy Week.