› added 12 years ago

107

TIL a man planned a roller coaster designed to kill its passengers.

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jXWR TIL 25% of all Russian men die before they reach their mid-50s, mainly due to vodka.
0wQnR TIL in 2003 some largely unkown online poker player came out of nowhere to win the 2003 World Series of Poker and win 2.5$. His real name was 'Christopher Moneymaker.' His win was said to revolutionize poker, and caused a great boom in popularity, called 'The Moneymaker Effect'
LklLm TIL about hedonic adaptation, which is the tendency for people to return to a baseline happiness level regardless of what happens to them. A study conducted on lottery winners and paraplegics concluded that neither group was either happier or sadder less than 6 months after the event.
wL5rM TIL Great white sharks DO NOT mistake human divers for pinnipeds (seals and sea lions). Attacks on people occur because they are sharp sighted, curious animals, prone to taking "taste tests" of unfamiliar objects that catch their eye.
yYOp TIL that Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk used to listen in on telephone and sex chatlines to find appalling, original stories for his writing.