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TIL Some Green Victorian Books Were Colored with Arsenic and are Considered Poisonous

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0wAnj TIL in 1981 a man named Roger Fischer had an idea for a volunteer to have ICBM launch codes put in their chest cavity. In the event of an emergency, the volunteer would carry a knife to be killed with. It was meant to force the personal killing of one man to start the impersonal killing of millions.
5VLdn TIL America has had many large denominations ($+100), including a $100,000 bill
9w6KM TIL many female insects mate only once in their lives. Insect populations can be controlled by releasing flocks of sterile males into the wild. Females mate with them, never give birth and simply die.
M7oaK TIL about a two billion-year-old naturally occuring U235 nuclear reactor in Gabon, where unique geological conditions created a sustained nuclear reactor for 100,000 years
JYk98 TIL the first known mention of the word abracadabra was in a second century AD book (written by a physician) which prescribed that malaria sufferers wear an amulet containing the word written in the form of a triangle and the power of the amulet would make lethal diseases go away.