› added 9 years ago

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TIL that Jim Woodman theorized that the Nazca lines were built via an ancient form of flight. TO prove this he constructed a hot air balloon only using resources that were available to the ancient Nazca people.

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NoMP TIL in 1965 a young American tourist illegally crossed the Norwegian-Soviet border, walked up to a Soviet border post and demanded the guards stamp his passport. He was arrested, sentenced to a detention camp and died on the train there.
kOXM5 TIL about superfecundation, which is the phenomenon of conceiving twins from two different fathers.
jNAYX TIL that during his presidency Richard Nixon set up the "Political Enemies Project", with the purpose of compiling a list of people that he didn't like, and "use the available federal machinery to screw them". The list even included celebrities like John Lennon, Bill Cosby and Steve McQueen.
l8na TIL the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on the Google homepage costs the company $110 million a year, as 1% of all searches use this feature and bypass all advertising.
Vx54 TIL, when Carl Linnaeus was in Hamburg, the mayor proudly showed him the remains of a seven-headed hydra. Linnaeus found out the remains were fake and made it public. As a result Linnaeus was forced to leave Hamburg immediately, as he crushed the mayor´s dream of selling the hydra for a large sum.