› added 12 years ago

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TIL that horseshoe-crab blood, at $60,000/gallon, is valued to such an extreme degree because it is not only employed worldwide in bacterial contamination tests, it is also used in testings for every single drug approved by the FDA, making it a $50 million/year industry.

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MeJ7V TIL of Kazimierz Piechowski, a Holocaust Survivor, who, along with three other Polish inmates under the age of 21, successfully escaped Auschwitz by stealing a commandant's car, driving to the entrance posing in stolen Nazi uniforms, and demanding the guards to open the gate.
WpZ9 TIL that the tomb complex of the Biblical King Herod was found nearly two hundred years ago, but his actual resting place remained elusive (despite zealous investigation) until this past decade–due to the complex’s size: the lowest portion of the complex in itself covers approximately 40 acres.
OoglY TIL that longer basketball shorts became a thing when Michael Jordan asked Champion, the maker of NBA uniforms, to make longer shorts so he could grab onto them when he hunched over out of breath.
eRG5 TIL that in some countries (such as Zimbabwe) it is commonly believed that sex with an albinistic woman cures HIV. This has led to rapes and subsequent spread of HIV.
6EJYQ TIL Joan of Arc wanted to fight the Hussites, a Czech-based Christian sect deemed "heretical" by the Catholic Church. In a letter to the Hussites, she said that were she not busy fighting the English, she would march to Bohemia to relieve the Hussites "of either their heresy or their lives."