› added 4 years ago

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TIL in 1965 six boys from Tonga skipped school and 'borrowed' a boat. After a storm and 8 days adrift, they survived alone on a small rocky island for 15 months. They stayed friends and worked together to survive and stay fit. After their rescue they were jailed (shortly) for stealing the boat.

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VBEE0 TIL that male adult whalefish can never open their mouths
mbOx TIL that Lake Kivu is one of three lakes that undergoes limnic eruptions. These sudden releases of carbon dioxide kill every human and animal around the lake. It is estimated that the lake erupts about once every thousand years. Currently, about two million people live on the shores of Lake Kivu.
l7dK TIL That, to prove that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria and not stress, a scientist drank a beaker of the bacterium. He both developed stomach ulcers and won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
ZpxMv TIL that Victor Hugo requested a very simple funeral with a pauper's casket. The government and Parisians made it a massive event. ~2 million people attended, brothels shut down, and a feminist journal complained that gymnasts and the department stores preceded the suffragists in the procession.
w9eo TIL that the iconic baker known as Betty Crocker never actually existed, and was merely a marketing tool created by General Mills.