› added 10 years ago

61

TIL Australia literally lost a prime minister, who went for a swim and was never seen again

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9Rap TIL that in 1963-6 a 120ft supergun fired over 200 projectiles weighing as much 180kg each as far as 180km into space from the Caribbean island of Barbados, setting an altitude record that has still not been broken - and the abandoned supergun is still in place on the island.
780MX TIL Serial killer Dimitris Vakrinos would kill people who mildly annoyed him. He once shot two random teens for being rude to someone on the street. After an argument with a fellow taxi driver over taxi priorities he tracked him down months later, got in his taxi posing as a customer and killed him
QNEx9 TIL that the Pokemon Charizard inspired the naming of Chilicola charizard, a species of stem-nesting bee.
M7NaA TIL that the Magnolia is a plant species with roots going back before even bees, so it doesn’t produce any nectar! Instead it’s pollinated by beetles
DQxkY TIL that all women are born with different amounts of eggs (oocytes) due to genetics, and some women can have as many as 50x more eggs than another woman!