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No.
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Interesting Fact
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138
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In the United States, there is no correlation between the number of guns in a state and that state's murder rate.
There is, however, a strong correlation between the number of guns and the suicide rate.
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288
|
Before Fritz Haber figured out how to fix nitrogen directly from the atmosphere, the world was running out of fertilizer.
If his discovery had never been made, the world population would be much, much lower today.
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240
|
If you are in the United States, it is virtually impossible to get trichinosis from
eating undercooked pork. Feel free to enjoy it medium rare.
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141
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It is estimated that 80% of the animals alive on Earth are nematodes, also known as roundworms.
|
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256
|
Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä killed about 500 Russians during the Winter War of 1939-40.
He didn't use a scope as he didn't want sunlight to reflect off the lens and reveal his position.
He put snow in his mouth so no one could see his breath. His nickname: The White Death.
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46
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The Sun weighs about 332,000 times as much as the Earth.
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306
|
In the HBO series "Chernobyl", three heroic men are seen volunteering on a "suicide" mission in which they
waded through radioactive water. Many people assume that the men died of radiation poisoning.
But they didn't. In fact, two are still alive while the third died of unrelated heart disease in 2005.
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199
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In 1963 the population of the United Arab Emirates was only about 95 thousand.
Today it is over 9.5 million - an increase of 10,000%.
However, a majority of the residents are guest workers from third world countries who have few legal rights.
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157
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The color orange was not used in the English language until 1512.
And in case you're wondering, the color was named after the fruit.
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305
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During the most recent Ice Age, the continent of Eurasia was dominated by the "Mammoth steppe".
This huge grassland, teeming with bison, horse, and wooly mammoths, stretched from Spain to China.
Most of the steppe abruptly disappeared around 12,000 years ago, possibly caused
when humans killed the animals whose grazing prevented forests from growing.
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204
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Ancient Greek athletes held light weights in their hands when doing the long jump. This allowed them
to more effectively use the momentum of their arms, adding distance to their jumps.
|
|
330
|
Humans aren't the only organisms to change the climate. It first happened about 2.4 billion years ago when
photosynthesizing microbes evolved. They changed the Earth's atmosphere by sucking up carbon dioxide
and emitting oxygen. The changes were so extreme that the entire Earth became covered in ice.
The equator was colder than Antarctica is today. This phenomenon is known as "Snowball Earth".
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241
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It is possible to tell if a piece of steel was made before the 1940s. This is because there is a tiny amount of
background radiation in the air from the testing of atomic bombs. Any steel made after 1945 has this signature inside it.
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173
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In one of the greatest upsets of all-time, the racehorse "Man o' War"
lost to a horse named "Upset" at the 1919 Sanford Stakes.
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335
|
Sgt. Henry Gunther was an American soldier who was the last person to be killed in action during WWI, just one minute
before the armistice began. Disobeying orders, he charged with his rifle and bayonet at a German post. The Germans,
knowing that the cease fire would begin soon, tried to wave him away. But Gunther continued charging and
let loose a shot or two with his rifle. He was killed instantly by German machine gun fire.
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304
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"Tsar Bomba" was the most powerful weapon ever detonated. A hydrogen bomb tested by the Soviets in 1961,
it had the power of 50 million tons of TNT. This was over 3000 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima,
and forty times as powerful as the nuclear weapons in the current U.S. arsenal.
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284
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There was once a chicken that lived for 18 months without a head. His name was Mike.
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73
|
The official name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Maha Nakhon.
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|
272
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In Europe, during the Middle Ages, animals were sometimes tried for crimes in a court of law.
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197
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Shanghai is a word. It means to force or trick someone to working on the crew of a ship.
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