› added 11 years ago

107

TIL the panama canal turns 100 today

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GAVQ5 TIL teflon is the only substance geckos cannot stick to.
R5Rr8 TIL the widely reported mass hysteria ensuing from 1973's The Exorcist is often exaggerated. Many instances of viewers fainting or leaving the cinema were not from the more gruesome possession scenes, but from an earlier medically-accurate scene where Regan gets blood drawn from her neck.
yQVZM TIL that on 1985 and on 1987, the then dictator of Burma (today Myanmar) Ne Win demonetised banknotes based on numerology (removing 50/100 kyat banknotes and adding 75/45/90 kyat banknotes without previous warning). The resulting economical instability led to a coup d'êtát on 1988.
grnw7 TIL Security Guard Joseph Trombino barely survived an infamous 1981 NY robbery of a Brink's Armored Car. Nearly a decade later, he would then go on to also barely survive the 1993 World Trade Center bombings but tragically died on Sept 11 2001 in the WTC North Tower
Eaw0 TIL that the K2, the world’s second tallest mountain, has no local name. It is so remote and inaccessible that very few local people knew of its existence, and thus why it retains its original surveying moniker given to it by British surveyors.