› added 11 years ago

163

TIL that up to 45 million Chinese were killed in the Chinese government’s “Great Leap Forward”. Punishment for stealing a potato would be death by drowning, and parents were forced to bury their children alive or be drowned in urine. This makes the Great Leap Forward the largest 20th century murder.

Read more independent.co.uk

via reddit.com

eplgJ TIL of Mo-99—a radioactive isotope of Molybdenum used in hospitals to produce the radioactive tracer Technetium-99m (for medical imaging). Mo-99's half-life is just 66 hours, and is made commercially in only 4 nuclear reactors around the world, most of which are reaching the end of their life.
PYbVL TIL in 2016 researchers at University of Southampton invented glass chips etched with nanostructures that can be used to store up to 360 terabytes of data for billions of years
BrdkL TIL that Jimi Hendrix’s national anthem performance at Woodstock was meant to be a protest to the Vietnam war. In the song he makes sounds that are supposed to symbolize bombs dropping and screams of people.
QJ7ek TIL Nobel winner in Chemistry John Howard Northrop, known for isolating and crystallizing the first bacteriophage, committed suicide
KOWBa TIL that early in his stand-up career Steve Martin once took the entire audience next door to a McDonald's and ordered 300 hamburgers only to then change the order to 'one small fries'