› added 11 months ago

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TIL for every grain of sand on Earth there are 10,000 stars in the known universe, but the total number of stars in the known universe equals the number of molecules in just ten drops of water.

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Mya7 TIL Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the fully automatic machine gun, once received the advice “ If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others` throats with greater facility.”
4kppw TIL Charles Dickens had a talking pet raven named Grip, who terrorized his dog, buried valuables in the yard, and died eating "a pound or two" of lead paint. As a character in one of his novels, Grip is believed to have inspired Poe's famous poem, and is on display in a Philadelphia public library
RGy6 TIL that Coca-Cola is sold (officially) in every country in the world except Cuba and North Korea.
XEmLr TIL when Professor Robert Goddard proposed using rockets to send men to the moon the New York Times ran a scathing editorial questioning his credentials, his chair at Clark College and intelligence. In response to Apollo 11 they printed one of the most famous retractions in history.
E1XLw TIL that not only do chimps self-medicate, but they also medicate / treat the wounds of other chimps in their community - an act previously thought to be unique to humans