› added 11 years ago

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TIL that Richard Nixon is the only former U.S. president to refuse protection from the Secret Service after leaving office. He called the program, which provides lifetime protection to all former presidents, a waste of money.

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PYVnw TIL camels once existed in Canada's far north. The Yukon giant camel was an 3.5 million-year-old ancestor of the living domestic camel found today in the deserts of Asia and Africa.
R5MM7 TIL, The oil from a right whale would operate an average American car for 8 years.
KOBX6 TIL that in order for a tesla coil to generate long arcs the previous arc ionizes the air and then the second arc (which is fired faster than the first can dissipate) jumps through the first arc, affectively doubling the arc length.
XeBX TIL there are officially 65,486 Jedi in Australia
rRklM TIL One of the hardest parts of SAS selection is that unlike other areas of the military where you're ordered to do something, here you're simply asked politely, to prove your self-motivation - which most potential recruits can't handle