› added 10 years ago

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TIL - The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. If you scale this to 46 years then the human race has been here for just 4 hours. The Industrial Revolution began just 1 minute ago and in that time, 50% of the Earth’s forests have been destroyed.

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dWY7 TIL that jousting is the official state sport of Maryland
p8VAb TIL nearly 60 y.o. combat instructors Bill Sykes and Dan Fairbairn would introduce themselves to spy trainees during WWII by descending a staircase into a ballroom. They would pretend to fall and roll down the stairs, but pop up at the bottom with a pistol in one hand and knife in the other.
D1rkp TIL the word "skunk" is derived from a word that literally means pee fox
wLW7o TIL: The Grand Canyon was formed not by the Colorado River cutting down into the landscape, but the landscape rising up and the river roughly maintaining its altitude above sea level
M7e4A TIL Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian) and H.P. Lovecraft (Call of Cthulhu) corresponded frequently and put references to each other's work in their stories.