› added 11 years ago

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TIL that when the English colonial government in Dehli, India put a bounty on cobras to eliminate them from the city, it resulted in a cobra population boom. The bounty was greater than the cost of breeding a cobra, and the citizens were breeding them to sell to the government.

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0xmR TIL in The Big Lebowski, The Dude’s line, “The Dude abides,” comes from Ecclesiastes 1:4, “One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but the earth abides forever”–a reference to how the Dude, much like the Earth, can weather change and chaos around him, but still remain the same.
N7EDQ TIL After flying 65 combat missions over North Vietnam (144 total), Guion Bluford became the first African American to qualify as a NASA astronaut in 1979. He also became the first African American in space in 1983, ultimately logging over 688 hours across four Space Shuttle missions.
OQk6 TIL that around 4,000 Brazilian street children “disappeared” after being arrested in a social cleansing leading up to the 2012 UN Conference in Rio. The Brazilian government refuses to say where they are. Around 90,000 people have disappeared in Rio in only two decades. More than half are minors.
9Rop TIL that ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ was in the public domain from 1974 to 1993.
78GQb TIL that the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the continental US occurred in New Madrid, MO, in 1812. It was so violent that the shaking was felt in New York, made church bells ring in South Carolina, and made part of the Mississippi River run backwards.