› added 10 years ago

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TIL that the Soviets dumped 17,000 containers of nuclear waste, 14 nuclear reactors, and more in the Kara Sea. Including one submarine that may re-achieve criticality and explode.

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via reddit.com

KYXk4 TIL Camels first evolved in North America
WkXm4 TIL in the 1862 Greek referendum to elect a new king, 1,763 voted for "a king", 482 voted "long live the three great powers", 93 voted "a republic", 3 people voted for Giuseppe Garibaldi and one person voted in favour of King Otto, the previous king who was just deposed and exiled
RXMj TIL a lighthouse keeper’s cat named Tibbles is said to have single-handedly driven an entire species of wren into extinction, making the bird “the only known species on Earth to be entirely wiped out by a single being”.
rNwQW TIL that the earliest known depiction of a handshake is an ancient Assyrian relief of the 9th century BC depicting the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III shaking the hand of the Babylonian King Marduk-Zakir-Shumi I to seal an alliance.
b9vyj TIL Emily Rosa became the youngest person to publish in a medical journal (at 11 years old) when her school science project was published. It demonstrated that Reiki (a type of alternative medicine) practitioners could not detect the alleged "life force" under experimental conditions.