› added 2 years ago

70

TIL it took ~400,000 years following the Big Bang for the Universe to cool down enough to allow atoms to form

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9YMmQ TIL Converse sneakers have a thin layer of felt on their soles so they can be legally classified as 'slippers.' Import tariffs on shoes in the US can be as high as 37.5%, but only 3% for slippers.
D1evD TIL to combat the spread of smallpox during the Civil War, soldiers would find someone with cowpox, cut open their pustules, and infect themselves with it. The less harmful cowpox made them immune to smallpox, but they sometimes confused cowpox with syphilis and gave themselves an STD instead.
neo9B TIL about the French "Zone Rouge", areas strictly prohibited by law from public entry and agricultural use because of an impossible amount of human remains and unexploded chemical munitions yet to be recovered from the battlefields of both world wars.
awyGb TIL Jerry Lewis never wore the same pair of socks twice. He would wear two or three brand-new pairs of sweat socks every day, going through up to 1000 pairs a year since the early 1950s. They were inexpensive and he paid retail. After wearing them once they were donated to orphanages or boys' homes.
awVv9 TIL that all Disc Galaxies rotate at about the same frequency (about once per billion years).