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TIL Legos last up to 1300 years, clogging up the earth’s oceans. Along with garbage such as plastic bottles and bags, ocean surfaces contain more of these plastic particles than larval fish. In commercial fishing seas, fishing nets collect over 10,000 pieces of plastic in an average 5 minute tow.

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xK0b TIL Before the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther confessed for hours at a time. Annoyed, the priest told him “If you’re going to confess so much, why don’t you go do something worth confessing? Kill your mother or father! Commit adultery! Quit coming in here with such flummery and fake sins.“
GA7O1 TIL Percival Lowell studied planets through the 24 inch Clark telescope and announced his discovery of canals and oases on Mars in 1894, which no other astronomers saw. Lowell used this telescope for the rest of his life and sketched Venus, despite the fact that it has no visible surface features
PYEBg TIL that none of the actors in the infamous “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast from 1938 intended for the citizens of America to take it as seriously as they did, considering that many of the scripts were improvised and most of the sound effects came from houseware items
4kXkN TIL that from 2008 to 2014 an IBM employee with a security cleareance leaked the usage of Danish celebrities' credit cards in real-time to tabloid journalists and received a monthly $1500 "paycheck" for his services.
NjGQ TIL that Britain has been in conflicts continuously for 101 years