› added 7 months ago

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TIL When aluminum was first discovered, in the early 1800s, it was worth more than gold. Originally, it was hard to separate from other materials. The Washington Monument was capped with it. When a reliable method was finally found to purify it, prices plummeted from $16 ($419 today) a pound to $2.

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QJYk6 TIL that St. Patrick was Roman, not Irish, and that there weren't any snakes in Ireland to begin with. Instead Patrick drove the pagans out of Ireland, which is another way of saying he drove the Irish out of Ireland.
bxnj TIL more than two dozen animals, including sheep and goats, perished from dehydration and exhaustion during a hiatus in the production of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, but the film still received the disclaimer “No animals harmed during the making.”
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