› added 7 years ago

226

TIL that the cork tree is a member of the oak family that can live for 200 years, and whose bark can be harvested up to 12 times.

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69Bp7 TIL John B Goodenough is widely credited with the identification and development of the lithium-ion battery
yVbLa TIL that Able Archer 83 was a war exercise conducted by NATO that panicked the Soviets into thinking they were really being attacked and so nearly launched a nuclear retaliation in response; it is now considered to be the nearest that mankind went into nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis
NAXM TIL Roald Dahl, author of “James and the Giant Peach” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, wrote the screenplay for the James Bond movie, “You Only Live Twice”.
7redL TIL the Carménère grape was considered extinct. That was until 1994 when a oenologist went to Chile and discovered that the Merlot he was tasting was, in fact, Carménère. Turns out the grape was accidentally planted and preserved when it was mistaken for Merlot.
G97g TIL High-ranking Viking funerals involved getting a slave girl drunk, screwed by numerous men, restrained, strangled, then stabbed through the ribs before being burned with the corpse.