› added 9 years ago

98

TIL the Romans believed eyelashes fell out from excessive sex, so women would use cosmetics to make their eyelashes look fuller and longer to demonstrate their chastity

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PYKJV TIL there was a natural nuclear reactor in present-day Gabon that produced about 100kw of energy 2 billion years ago, running for thousands of years. This is the only known example of naturally occurring nuclear fission.
GAGk4 TIL in 2007 only 700 Florida snail kite birds remained because newly introduced invasive snails were too big to eat. From 2007 to 2017, these birds rapidly evolved 8-12% larger beaks because the smallest birds all starved to death. As of 2022 they have recovered to 3,000 individuals.
VMkm4 TIL that Nobuo Fujita, the Japanese pilot who attacked a town in Oregon during World War II returned years later to present his family's 400-year-old samurai sword to the city as a symbol of regret
694Lw TIL a 1912 cookbook deemed Vegetable candy "the ideal confectionery" & "insurance against the evil effects of gluttony!" Before an undue amount of sugar is consumed, the mass of the vegetable base satisfies the appetite.
nPyb TIL One of the first items sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer. When eBay creator, Pierre Omidyar, emailed the person who bought the broken laser pointer for $14.83 ($22.40 today) to make sure he knew it was broken, the man told him “I’m a collector of broken laser pointers.”