› added 12 years ago

121

TIL literacy in North Korea is defined by the ability to write “Kim Il-Sung”

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4WlJ TIL An alchemist, testing if urine can be turned to gold, discovered that urine instead yields phosphorus. Which was worth more at that time.
VZ64 TIL: 2,000-year-old seeds were discovered in 1963 inside an ancient jar in Israel. They were planted in 2005 and a tree that had been extinct for over 1800 years sprouted.
J195k TIL more than a quarter of the world's captive-bred panda population are descendants of one male panda named Pan Pan
4aR5 TIL The human tongue is made of 8 different muscles, 4 of which (called the intrinsic muscles) are not even connected to bone.
edVL TIL:When railway tycoon George Pullman died in 1897, his family was so afraid that his corpse would be desecrated by employees, they buried him at night in a pit 8 feet deep, encased in floors and walls of steel-reinforced concrete in a lead-lined casket covered in layers of asphalt and steel rails.