› added 2 months ago

12

TIL of the great auk, a penguin-like bird that roamed the North Atlantic until it went extinct in the mid-19th century. One of the last known members of the species was killed by a group of Scotsmen who believed it to be a witch.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

wLXL7 TIL Let it Snow doesn’t say one word about Christmas in its entire song. It was written in the summer by Sammy Cahn, after he was tired of the summer heat.
RZ84 TIL That the ACT and College Board (SAT) sell student information, netting these companies millions of dollars each year.
LQlD9 TIL that influenza originated as an indirect result of the domestication of pigs and ducks
Ooylg TIL a woman in France accidentally received a phone bill of €11,721,000,000,000,000 (million billion). This was 5000x the GDP of France at the time. It took several days of wrangling before the phone company finally admitted it was a mistake and she owed just €117.21. They let her off.
nWVpY TIL the Lenny Kravitz song 'Always On The Run' was originally written by Slash and intended for use on a Guns N Roses studio album, but their drummer encountered problems with it, so Slash gave the song to Kravitz.