› added 10 years ago

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TIL that Iceland let its banks fail instead of bailing them out. In 2008, the country started over from square one after paying off loans for consumers, forgiving homeowner debt, and throwing the offenders responsible in prison. Its economy is now growing faster than the US and European economies.

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aOgJ TIL there is an extinct genus of ape, Gigantopithecus blacki, which stood up to 9.8 feet tall, weighed as much as 1,190 pounds and have lived alongside modern humans for tens of thousands of years.
rRPEe TIL that after Puyi, the last Emperor of China, was dethroned, he worked as a street cleaner and would visit the Forbidden Palace as a tourist and point out the various objects on display that he used to own as Emperor.
p8oGZ TIL Ali Hassan Al-Majid was named Chemical Ali because of his contributions to Bloody Friday. This Event was a Chemical attack in Kurdistan in which people who were hit by these gas bombs dropped dead. In some cases, they coughed up green vomit/died of laughter.
kO67B TIL the hairy frog aka the wolverine frog gets its name from its behavior of breaking its own bones and sticking them out out of its skin to use as sharp weapons. It is the only known animal with this behavior.
x7lo TIL of polypropylene “string” breast implants (now banned by the FDA) which irritate the breast tissue causing them to fill with fluid, resulting in “cartoonishly large breasts”. The continual expansion means the fluid must regularly be removed by a surgeon.