› added 12 years ago

96

TIL the estimated cost of the steel to build the Death Star is $852,000,000,000,000,000

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gMoeX TIL that matches weren't invented until 1826. As John Walker stirred a pot of chemicals, a lump formed on the end of the mixing stick. He tried scraping the dried chemicals off, igniting the stick and accidentally inventing matches.
XkyE TIL in 1965, 25% of all black households in the US were headed by women. By 2010, that figure reached 72%.
WkXrd TIL about Nyepi, Balinese day of silence, fasting and meditation when no one except emergency services is allowed to go outside, and the only airport in Bali remains closed for the entire day
LrGV TIL that during World War 1, New Zealand raised an army of 100,000 men, from a population of just over a million people.
GY787 TIL of Adrian Carton de Wiart, a vetern of four wars. He survived seperate instances of being shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a POW camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them.