› added 4 years ago

139

TIL When 117 year old Marie-Louise Meilleur became the world's oldest person, she was confined to her bedroom, and she could only hear when people shouted directly into her right ear. One of her sons was also living in the same nursing home, and her oldest living daughter was 90

Read more grg.org

via reddit.com

8NLb TIL that throughout the lifespan of a star, the energy creates 90 natural elements, until it runs out of Helium and creates Iron, which kills the star.
lobpK TIL That Medival Europeans thought that a brownstone supposedly found in old toads heads could cure almost any poison and the stones were often made into highly prized jewelry. These stones were in fact fossils dating from the Jurassic/Cretaceous period and had no curative properties.
XE1gX TIL that the first mention of a pen with ink reservoir came in 973 in the region of northwest Africa by Ma'ād al-Mu'izz. He wanted a pen that didn’t get his hand messy. The next mention came in the 17th century by a German inventor, Daniel Schwenter.
6Endl TIL that prior to the development of modern guns, soldiers needed to use their teeth to open cartridges, so militaries introduced requirements about the minimum number of the teeth of their soldiers. In some cases soldiers would pull or damage their teeth in order to avoid military conscription.
jN7Ya TIL in 1990 43 out of the 45 climbers attempting Lenin Peak were buried in an avalanche. The two survivors could hear their comrades shouting for help hours after the slide, but failed in any attempts to rescue them as the ice set like concrete immediately