› added 4 months ago

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TIL: In 1904, a man survived falling over Niagara Falls without a barrel, becoming the first recorded unprotected fall survivor.

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kJdA4 TIL that the US considered dropping an atomic bomb on Kyoto. However, Secretary of War Henry Stimson had vacationed there and admired the city. So, he convinced President Truman to choose another target due to Kyoto’s religious significance. Nagasaki was chosen in its place.
JYARm TIL: An observational study of hand washing after toilet use at an Infectious Disease conference found that compliance with hand hygiene after toilet visits was 84% for conference participants, 75% for members of the public, and only 46% for hospital staff.
eppVk TIL of the format called MovieCD (not to be confused with VideoCD or CD-Video) which was a way for full-length videos to be played on 16-Bit Windows PCs that couldn’t handle the MPEG codec.
lZ5K TIL There’s a genetic disease called Laron Syndrome that results in short stature, longer life expectancy, and near immunity to cancer and diabetes - amongst other things.
gM6K7 TIL that after losing most of his hearing, Ludwig van Beethoven used bone conduction by placing one end of a rod in his mouth and resting the other end on the rim of his piano, which enabled him to hear music through vibrations in his jawbone.