› added 9 years ago

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TIL that ‘boosting’ is a form of cheating in paralympics. Athletes with spinal cord injuries will do things like breaking bones (usually in toes), electric shocks (to feet/legs/scrotum/testicles), and more. This results in increased blood pressure which improves performance.

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VMnLm TIL that in the entire history of mankind it is estimated that there have been 3,000,000 shipwrecks. We have explored less than 1% of them. The Battle of the Atlantic alone, which spanned nearly six years during World War II, claimed over 3,500 merchant vessels, 175 warships, and 783 submarines.
X0YjE TIL that Jeanne de Clisson (1300-1359) was a pirate and privateer, called the Lioness of Brittany. She embarked in revenge for the execution of her husband, ordered by the French King. She sailed across the English channel looking for French commerce ships and called her flagship "My Revenge".
loVeG TIL the Baghdad Pact was a NATO type alliance between the UK, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan until 1979
VBAAk TIL of the Lake Peigneur Giant Sinkhole Disaster of 1980, in which a drilling platform accidentally struck the side of a salt mine, causing the mine to rapidly dissolve and as it swallowed the entire 3.5 billion gallons of water
Bg0eK TIL In 2022, a 30-year old was swept by the sea (along with a friend who was never found) while swimming in Halkidiki, Greece. He was rescued 20 hours later, holding on to a tiny football ball, 26km away from the beach they were swept from