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The most popular artificial material on Earth isn’t steel, plastic, or aluminum — it’s concrete. Thousands of years ago, we used it to build civilizations, but then our knowledge of how to make it was lost. Here’s how we discovered concrete, forgot it, and then finally cracked the mystery of what makes it so strong.

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Z8DOR TIL in 1995, NASA astronomer Bob Williams wanted to point the Hubble telescope at the darkest part of the sky for 100 hours. Critics said it was a waste of valuable time, and he'd have to resign if it came up blank. Instead it revealed over 3,000 galaxies, in an area 1/30th as wide as a full moon
gYJX TIL that Eliahu Itzkovitz’s family was murdered in the Holocaust by a guard named Stănescu. When he learned that Stănescu was serving in the French Foreign Legion, Itzkovitz deserted from the Israeli Navy, joined the Legion, became Stănescu’s trusted subordinate, and gunned him down
71Zb [TIL] The Jewel wasp performs a form of brain surgery on a cockroach to effectively zombify the cockroach so its young can feed off of the living cockroach
BvVb TIL that football player Mardy Gilyard was kicked out of the University of Cincinnati and owed the school $10,000. he then worked 4 jobs simultaneously and slept in his car just to get back into school, eventually becoming the leading wide receiver in UC history
QJ8Ea TIL that at just over 35 miles in length, the recently completed Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland is now the world's longest. Requiring 17 years to build, it contains 84 times the concrete in the Empire State Building and is approx 4 miles longer than the Eurotunnel (connecting the UK to France).