› added 7 years ago

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TIL that the jury trials in the State of Louisiana does not require a unanimous decision. Guilty verdicts can be reached with just 10 / 12 jurors.

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oRKXE TIL The Saint-Bélec slab (2150–1600 BCE) is a stone artefact from Brittany thought to be the earliest map of any known territory. The slab was discovered in 1900 and then forgotten for more than a century in the cellar at the Château de Kernuz, where it was rediscovered in 2014.
69ea8 TIL about the Oyster Wars, a series of sometimes violent conflicts that lasted almost 100 years between the states of Maryland and Virginia against 'Oyster Pirates' who illegally dredged the Chesapeake Bay for oysters
8aJdX TIL that some ancient sling bullets excavated from the city of Athens, Greece were inscribed with the word "ΔΕΞΑΙ" (dexai), which translates to "catch!"
6EMd8 Hong Kong-based students, Sum Ming Wong and Kin Pong Li designed a door handle that uses light to always keep itself sterilized. The students were inspired by the SARS outbreak in the 2000s and figured that a self-sanitizing door handle is more effective than the chemical-based cleaning processes we are using right now. The handle is made of a glass tube with aluminum caps at each end and the entire handle is covered in a powdered photocatalytic coating made from a mineral called titanium dioxide. The bacteria is decomposed through a chemical reaction that is activated by UV light reacting with the thin coating on the glass tube.
1b5X TIL in 1856 Sir Andrew Waugh calculated the height of Mt. Everest to be exactly 29,000ft. However, he published the calculation of 29,002ft. due to the fear that the former would seem like nothing more than a rounded estimate. This makes him the first person to put two feet on top of Mt. Everest.