› added 9 months ago

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TIL: That following the solar eclipse of August 11 1999, the BMJ reported only 14 cases of eye damage from improper viewing of the eclipse, a number lower than initially feared. In one of the most serious cases the patient had looked at the Sun without eye protection for 20 minutes.

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rb44 TIL that Winston Churchill entered the UK Parliament in 1900 as a Conservative. He defected to the Liberal Party in 1904 but returned to the Conservatives in 1924, saying “Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat.”
OOLL TIL that out of 262 Blue Angels pilots, 26 have been killed during training or show accidents, giving the job a 10% fatality rate.
Al7w TIL that the FBI issues “National Security Letters” (NSL) which when received, includes a standing gag order that prevents the recipient from talking about the letter to anyone even their own attorney. These letters are issues by the FBI without court oversight.
KOYl4 In this episode of Today I Learned, National Geographic Emerging Explorer Thomas Taha Rassam Culhane introduces the Zabaleen and explains how they’ve built a way of life around Cairo’s garbage.
k5MB TIL The first Democrat governor of Wyoming wore a pair of shoes made of human skin to his inaugural ball.