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TIL dolphins don’t just leave their dead behind. Mothers have been seen carrying their lifeless calves for days, even as they decompose, showing a terrible sense of loss.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/study-suggests-dolphins-and-some-whales-grieve-their-dead-180969414/
https://redd.it/1go5hpl
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TIL that the 1985 film Back To The Future was almost titled "Spaceman from Pluto" after executives at Universal didn't like the original title. In response, the film's producer, Steven Spielberg, sent them a memo thanking him for sending his wonderful "joke memo." The original title was kept.
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/12-things-you-didnt-know-about-back-to-the-future/
https://redd.it/1go4ekw
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TIL in 2005 a typo nearly bankrupted one of Japan’s largest investment banks, Mizuho Securities. A broker mistakenly sold 610,000 shares at 1 yen each instead of 1 share at 610,000 yen. Attempts to cancel the trade failed. Mizuho lost over $225 million in minutes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8394814.stm
https://redd.it/1go31me
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Today I learned that Stilton cheese cannot legally be made in Stilton, the village which gave the cheese its name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stilton_cheese
https://redd.it/1gncg3e
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TIL about Bass Reeves, a black man who escaped slavery and became a Deputy U.S. Marshal, known for having over 3,000 arrests and 20 kills in the line of duty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_Reeves
https://redd.it/1gnfzz8
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TIL Before she met Clyde, Bonnie Parker was a waitress. One of her regular customers was Ted Hinton who would later be one of the gunmen who killed her. Hinton later admitted he had a little crush on Bonnie which made hunting her down difficult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Hinton
https://redd.it/1gnf6h6
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TIL that children exposed to family violence show the same pattern of brain activity as soldiers exposed to combat.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2011/dec/maltreated-children-show-same-pattern-brain-activity-combat-soldiers
https://redd.it/1gn9nyx
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TIL that Led Zeppelin was scheduled to play an outdoor show in Singapore on February 14, 1972 but were not allowed into the country, they were even refused permission to get off their plane because they refused to have their long hair cut due to Singapore's law.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/75421/time-singapore-turned-away-led-zeppelin-because-their-long-hair
https://redd.it/1gnfwb6
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TIL "Body Integrity Identity Disorder" is a rare psychological condition where individuals feel an overwhelming desire to amputate a healthy limb, believing it doesn’t belong to them. This disconnect between body and mind leads some to extreme measures, feeling incomplete until the limb is removed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_integrity_dysphoria
https://redd.it/1gmqi9a
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TIL that adults who played Pokémon video games extensively as children have a brain region that responds preferentially to images of each Pokémon. Stanford researchers identified the brain region activated by Pokémon characters.
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2019/05/regular-pokemon-players-pikachu-brain
https://redd.it/1gmkp8g
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TIL that the stunt pilot Charles Hamilton was known for often flying drunk and crashed over 60 times. However, he survived every time and instead died of tuberculosis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_K._Hamilton
https://redd.it/1gmne2o
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TIL the state of Georgia forbids banishment beyond its borders, so the state gets around it by instead banning criminals from 158 out of 159 counties, with the last one, Echols, being so poor and remote that those banished leave the state instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echols_County,_Georgia
https://redd.it/1gmmvet
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TIL in 1874, the Freedman’s Savings Bank, created to help African Americans build wealth, collapsed due to mismanagement and fraud. Over 60,000 Black Americans lost about $3M in savings, devastating trust in financial institutions and crippling Black economic progress many decades.
https://www.occ.treas.gov/about/who-we-are/history/1863-1865/1863-1865-freedmans-savings-bank.html
https://redd.it/1glv8ck
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TIL that The Offspring used the same spoken word sample on their hit "Pretty Fly For A White Guy" (released in 1998) as Def Leppard's "Rock Of Ages" (released in 1983). The spoken word sample was just jibberish made up by Def Leppard's producer because he did not want to use the standard 1-2-3 count
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_of_Ages_(Def_Leppard_song)
https://redd.it/1glsuyz
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TIL Chiang Kai-shek's adopted son, Chiang Wei-kuo, was an officer candidate in the Wehrmacht from 1936 to 1939 and participated in the Anschluss before being recalled back to China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Wei-kuo#In_the_Wehrmacht
https://redd.it/1glyuoq
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TIL Cow tipping, the purported activity of sneaking up on any unsuspecting or sleeping upright cow and pushing it over for entertainment, is generally considered an urban legend. Estimates suggest that at least four people would be required to achieve this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tipping
https://redd.it/1go019h
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TIL Gunter Schabowski accidentally announced the opening of the Berlin Wall at a press conference in 1989. He had not reviewed the press release script and was absent during the Politburo deliberations.
https://lithub.com/toppled-the-accidental-opening-of-the-berlin-wall/
https://redd.it/1go2p6g
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TIL Chad Kroeger asked his stepfather to loan him CA$4,000 so that Nickelback could record the band’s first demo. Half the money was spent to record the EP, while Kroeger spent the other half on magic mushrooms to resell.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickelback#Formation_(1995)
https://redd.it/1go8811
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TIL Of the 45 persons who have served as President of the United States, at least half have displayed proficiency in speaking or writing a language other than English. Of these, only one, Martin Van Buren, learned English as his second language; his first language was Dutch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multilingual_presidents_of_the_United_States
https://redd.it/1gn5tyt
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TIL the soft drink 7 Up initially contained lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug. It was a key selling point until 1948 when the FDA banned lithium from beer and drinks. 7 Up was originally called 7 Up Lithiated Lemon Soda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Up
https://redd.it/1gnjlne
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TIL 65% of Staten Island voted to secede from the rest of New York City in 1993, only to have their efforts blocked by the State Assembly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_and_secession_in_New_York#Staten_Island_secession_from_New_York_City
https://redd.it/1gnc1ux
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TIL that an English chemist named James Price claimed to be able to turn mercury into silver or gold. When asked by members of the Royal Society to perform the experiment in front of credible witnesses, he reluctantly agreed, only to drink poison in front of them instead.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Price_(chemist)
https://redd.it/1gncbla
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TIL In contrast to high treason, petty treason was a crime in England which involved the killing of a social superior seen as breaking the social hierarchy; such as a servant killing their master. Unlike with high treason, men would be hanged but not quartered, women would be burned but not drawn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petty_treason
https://redd.it/1gmgjvu
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TIL about Botulf Botulfsson, the only person executed for heresy in Sweden. He denied that the Eucharist was the body of Christ, telling a priest: "If the bread were truly the body of Christ you would have eaten it all yourself a long time ago." He was burned in 1311.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulf_Botulfsson
https://redd.it/1gmbb0c
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TIL Highway hypnosis is an altered mental state in which an automobile driver can drive lengthy distances and respond adequately to external events with no recollection of consciously having done so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_hypnosis
https://redd.it/1gmfn82
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TIL that in 2011, a woman sued P. Diddy for 1 Trillion Dollars, claiming he was behind the 9/11 Attacks, and was the father of her child.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2011/feb/03/p-diddy-celebrity-lawsuit
https://redd.it/1gmtjgt
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TIL Darryl Hannah was diagnosed as autistic as a child. Doctors recommended she be institutionalized but her mother opted for a change in environment, moving to Jamaica with her.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Hannah
https://redd.it/1gmstxs
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TIL That in the 1980's, Saddam Hussein received a key to the city of Detroit
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/guess-who-got-the-key-to-detroit/
https://redd.it/1glxbas
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TIL that between 1970 and 1997 so many post office workers snapped and killed their coworkers that a new slang term "going postal" became a new slang term for becoming exceptionally angry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_postal
https://redd.it/1gm2yq4
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TIL according to tribal lore, the Choctaw tribe settled in the land of present-day Alabama after sailing across the Gulf of Mexico from the Yucatán peninsula. DNA evidence supports this origin story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choctaw?wprov=sfti1#Etymology
https://redd.it/1glxfag
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