ZpQ0Y TIL the Lewis and Clark expedition had a medical kit that contained fifty dozen laxatives pills know as "thunderclappers" that contained over 50% mercury. This high mercury content was once even used by archeologists to verify a campsite of the expedition.
784ZZ TIL that South Korea bans its own citizens from traveling to certain countries that are deemed too dangerous to travel to.
kJNwe TIL that Nina Myers and George Mason from 24 are married IRL (and have been for almost 24 years!)
EgN6d TIL that the Y chromosome can disappear with age. About 35% of men aged 70 years old are missing a Y chromosome in some of their cells, with the degree of loss ranging between 4% and 70%.
Y7AMP TIL ValuJet Airlines, an ultra low cost carrier in the 1990s, was notorious for its dangerous cost-cutting measures. In a span of 2 years from 1994-1996, the airline saw 129 emergency landings & an accident rate 14 times higher than legacy airlines of the era.
BgPWx TIL the Buran 1.01, the only Russian shuttle to fly to space, was destroyed in a roof collapse in 2002
rNZGW TIL California miners planted a skull to prank a geologist they disliked. In 1866, Josiah Whitney announced it as proof humans existed in North America two million years ago. Whitney never accepted the hoax, even after a fluorine analysis—the first done on human bone—showed it was of recent origin.
NXKBM TIL that in 2005, a film crew making a movie about 9/11 blew what they thought was scrap paper into the air to simulate the debris falling from the towers. The crew had to attempt to retrieve the papers when they realized that what they scattering around downtown Toronto were in fact medical records
l7r6B TIL the NYPD has stations in 11 countries outside the US
8enG8 TIL about the National Battery Ingestion Hotline - a phone service in the US staffed 24/7 by Trained nurses, pharmacists & toxicologists to provide advice in the event of ingesting a battery
P1ole TIL that after the 2011 Tohou Tsunami and the crippling of the Fukushima nuclear reactor, the Japanese government feared a worst case scenario "Devil's chain reaction" in which multiple nearby reactors would fail, forcing the government to evacuate the entire city of Tokyo
epXxn TIL a mob of angry British women that married American soldiers "besieged" Eleanor Roosevelt's hotel in November 1945 because they weren't being allowed to immigrate to the USA