› added 4 years ago

28

TIL John Steinbeck after visiting Kiev in 1947: "If the US were completely destroyed from New York to Kansas, we would have about the area of destruction Ukraine has. If six million people were killed, not counting soldiers, 15% of the population, you would have an idea of the casualties of Ukraine"

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

E5L7 TIL in 1971, LANSA Flight 508 crashed over the Amazon Jungle, killing all crew and 85 of 86 passengers. The sole survivor was a 17 y.o. girl, who fell 2 miles down into the rain forest strapped to her seat, survived the fall, and walked the jungle injured for 10 days until she was rescued by locals
X0kkP TIL the original Ferris Wheel was designed and constructed by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. as a landmark for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was intended to rival the Eiffel Tower, which was the centerpiece of the 1889 Paris Exposition.
vN94 TIL a teenager secretly lived at AOL’s headquarters for two months. People just assumed he was working late.
NNJb Scientists detected an atomic nucleus traveling at 99.9999999999999% of the speed of light, with energy 20 quintillion times that of visible light. It was appropriately named the “Oh-My-God Particle.”
gpk9 TIL Blue Raspberry was created for use in snow cones due to concerns over FD&C Red No. 2 dye; the research that deemed it safe had been sponsored by the companies producing the dye. The artificial flavor we know as raspberry was primarily created from banana, cherry, and pineapple esters (essences).