› added 12 years ago

115

TIL that in the US during the 20th century life expectancy at birth increased by 60% for white men and more than doubled for black men.

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rRP5M TIL that in 1900, during the Scofield mine explosion, a guy named John Wilson was thrown at least 820 feet into the air. He survived
BrR7W TIL that archaeologists routinely find edible honey in ancient Egyptian tombs - the stuff never spoils, due to extremely low water-content, very low pH, and hydrogen peroxide (made by an enzyme in the bees' stomachs).
GYK14 TIL that the depictions of the mafia in The Sopranos were so accurate, that real members thought that they were being spied on. These conversations were overheard, when the FBI were indeed spying on them.
J4El TIL that the Forbidden City, built in 1420, was so well-designed that it withstood over 200 earthquakes and can withstand one with magnitude 10.1 on the Richter scale.
ADgXn TIL the first area-accurate world map was created in 1999 when Japanese architect Hajime Narukawa invented the Authagraph Projection, which divides a spherical surface into 96 triangles, transfers them to a tetrahedron while maintaining area proportions, and unfolds into a rectangle.