› added 7 years ago

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TIL that Norman Rockwell tried to enlist in the Navy during WW1, but was rejected for being 8 pounds underweight. He successfully enlisted the next day after spending the night gorging himself on bananas, liquids and doughnuts.

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woPNo TIL despite her repeated claims of being more than 85% accurate, a 2013 article found that Sylvia Browne, who claimed to be a psychic, was accurate in none of her 33 predictions. For instance, she predicted that she would die at the age of 88, but she passed away at the age of 77.
Lk7EZ TIL that the country with the tallest average height is Bosnia and Herzegovina (183.9 cm/6' 0" for men, 171.8 cm/5' 7" for women), and the countries with the shortest average height are Indonesia for men (158.0 cm/5' 2") and Bolivia for women (142.2 cm/4' 8")
16VJP TIL Bernini's David (1624) was innovative because viewers are meant to walk around the statue, traditionally staues were designed with one angle in mind. Additionally the statue extends beyond the plinth and features elements of motion not found outside of paintings.
16nLW TIL wooden norias of the Orontes river in Hama, Syria were driven by water flowing underneath them pushing the wheel's paddles. Maintained by skilled carpenters till recently due to lack of money and skilled craftsmen, norias delivered up to 200,000 litres of water per hour to timeshared channels
kODMe TIL during a car accident a sodium azide pellet is ignited by an internal car sensor and explodes generating toxic/highly-explosive gas at a 250 mph velocity which undergoes a series of chemical reactions before turning into a non-toxic, stable silica glass... and that's how your airbag is inflated.