› added 5 years ago

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TIL about the origins of US whistleblower protections. In 1777, 10 soldiers reported their commanding officers for torture. Instead of branding the soldiers as traitors, the Founding Fathers passed a law protecting them and future whistleblowers.

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9mam TIL it is possible to survive a nuclear blast inside a bankvault, and this is because they are designed specifically to withstand the blast pressure.
pAJp TIL that when divers were collecting bodies from the wreckage of the boat Jascon-4, 3 days after it sunk, one of the divers was grabbed by a survivor who managed to survive by finding an air pocket in the toilet.
16gMX TIL that many people believe sharks don't get cancer; this is from a 1992 book, "Sharks Don't Get Cancer," which invented claims to sell shark cartilage as a cancer remedy
D1ZMj TIL that ancient Egyptians had 12 months of exactly 30 days each, with five epagomenal days to bring the total to 365. Each month was divided into three 10-day periods known as decans or decades.
kOPN1 TIL that two French inventors who had never heard of each other before presented nearly identical techniques for producing color photographs on the same day in 1869 to the French Society for Photography.