› added 5 years ago

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TIL That Stephen Hawking attempted to commit suicide by not breathing following a tracheostomy operation however, the reflex to breathe was too strong.

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via reddit.com

9m4m TIL the ancient Egyptians measured the flood levels of the Nile and levied taxes according to how high water levels were. If the water level indicated there would be a strong harvest, taxes would be higher.
kObje TIL there are just three places in the world where a boat can row under a train ridden under a car driven under an airplane: the BU Bridge in Boston, MA, the Steel Bridge in Portland, OR, and the 25 de Abril Bridge in Lisbon, Portugal.
9YPpQ TIL: Lottie Williams is the only person to have been hit by re-entering space debris. She was walking through a park in Tulsa Oklahoma in Jan 1997 at 3:30 am and felt a tapping on her shoulder. It was a piece of the fuel tank of a Delta II rocket launched in 1996. She was unhurt.
dDXMK TIL: Prairie dogs build their burrows with a flat orifice at one end and a mounded one at the other. During a breeze, the different surface geometries create a pressure differential via the Bernoulli effect, forcing air to flow from the flat end to the mounded end, ventilating the burrow.
neXRW TIL that pineapples were so rare a sight in the 1700's they were a symbol of wealth. The few that were cultivated in hothouses were worth about five thousand pounds ($8000) each. They weren't eaten, but were rented out by the aristocracy as a table centerpiece at dinner parties.