› added 8 years ago

701

TIL there are still unclimbed mountains on Earth, also referred to as "virgin peaks"

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via reddit.com

VBK5p TIL that Sergeant Bill was a goat who achieved hero status during World War I as a Canadian war hero. Bill was able to hear and warn soldiers of incoming shell explosions, pushing 3 soldiers into a trench within seconds of an incoming shell.
wLERo TIL That Queen Elizabeth II retains real powers like the ability to dissolve the Australian and Canadian parliaments.
x6xbw TIL experiments by Benjamin Libet found that the brain begins preparing actions about 300 milliseconds before a person becomes consciously aware of deciding to act.
PlLG TIL that the Grateful Dead wrote a letter to the Nixon Administration in 1974 offering advice on how to resolve the Watergate scandal. Their solution: “chrome the entire White House.”
7rMjM TIL that when Mt. Everest was found to be the tallest mountain on Earth at 29000ft (the estimate at the time), an extra 2 feet were added on top of the number because they feared if it was too round of a number, the public would think they had picked an arbitrary number.