› added 9 years ago

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TIL that in 1873 William Shanks spent 15 years of his life calculating pi to 707 places, BY HAND. However The Last Few Years Were Wasted– He Made A Mistake After The 527'th Digit.

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jeWE TIL that our eyes get puffy after crying because tissue around our eyes absorbs the overflow of tears - also learned that there are 3 types of tears.
7rJ0b TIL until December '98, songs could not chart on the Billboard Hot 100 unless they were released as a single. This resulted in many well-known 90s songs (e.g. No Doubt's Don't Speak, Sugar Ray's Fly) being absent from the chart's history. Under current rules, they would have likely hit #1.
8aBeV There are a handful of people who are born into this world without fingerprints. The technical term for the condition is adermatoglyphia, dubbed 'immigration delay disease,' and for years, it wasn't known what caused the phenomenon. A couple of years ago, dermatologists found that the disease was related to a genetic mutation.
EraX TIL General Motors purposely kept the 1979 Chevy Malibu gas tank dangerously close to the rear of the vehicle. Instead of paying an extra $8.59 per vehicle to move the gas tank to a safer location, GM estimated that they would only have to pay $2.40 per vehicle to pay off personal-injury lawsuits.
Rv84 TIL after having his arms ripped off by a tractor, a teenager called for help using a pencil in his teeth, and then sat in the bathtub so he wouldn’t get blood on the new carpet