› added 3 years ago

90

TIL that one of the attempts to find El Dorado, the mythical city of gold, involved draining a lake using a bucket chain of laborers. Over three months, the lake level fell 3 meters and only recovered about $100K worth of gold.

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awMRL TIL The UK and US versions of Dennis the Menace are completely unrelated but by a remarkable coincidence both debuted on the same day; 12 March 1951.
r5bd TIL that the myth of Pandora’s box was originally “Pandora’s Jar” but through a bad translation it became accepted as a box.
j8Qv TIL a British Challenger 2 tank was hit directly by 14 RPGs and an anti-tank missile in Iraq. The crew was uninjured and the tank was back in operation 6 hours later. Another survived 70 RPG hits. Only 1 Challenger 2 has been destroyed in combat; by another Challenger 2 in a friendly fire incident.
6ENvJ TIL that a telescope is currently under construction in Chile that is expected to provide images that are 16 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope
e0xvL TIL pedestrianism was a famous sport in the 19th century where people would compete to walk the furthest distance in the shortest amount of time. A famous challenge was walking 1000 miles in 1000 hours, first completed by Robert Barclay Allardice in 1809.