› added 10 years ago

201

TIL that Jeanne Calment, the oldest human to have ever lived, smoked from the age of 21 until she gave up the habit at 117.

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lowLr TIL An orchid hunter & companion were taken hostage by guerrillas in Colombia. After 9 months of being held, they were told they’d be killed, so on his final day he designed a dream garden. But he was released, got home & built the garden, & won awards for it
woX8W TIL that around the globe, no country produces more electricity than China. At nearly eight million gigawatt-hours of electricity annually (7,779,100 GWh), China leads the rest of the world by quite a large margin, nearly double the amount of the second-ranked United States (4,286,600 GWh).
5Y7AQ TIL during Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of prisoners were left to die in their cells. They had no food or water for days, as waters rose to their chests. There were no lights and the toilets were backed up. Many were evacuated, but 517 went unaccounted for.
pYn5Z TIL that adding gallium to aluminum makes it as weak as paper!
nQjb TIL the Lee-Enfield rifle has been in active service with at least one military since 1895 (currently still used by the Canadian Rangers)