› added 11 years ago

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TIL that a tribe in Brazil uses a glove filled with hundreds of the most painful ants stinging ants in the world, the bullet ant, as an initiation rite for young men. The rite can happen for up to ten minutes, must occur a total of 20 times before the boy is declared a man.

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yQpJv TIL the company behind 5 Minute Crafts is run out of Cyprus by Russians
R5Zm9 TIL that a small percentage (1-2%) of honeybees in a given colony will specialize as undertakers; they function to prevent disease by removing corpses from the hive
d8LY8 TIL When the painting 'The Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Dispatch' was first exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1822 it was so popular that a rail was installed to protect it from the crowds. This was the first time that a rail was needed at the Royal Academy exhibition.
ANZKx TIL of the ship MS Hans Hedtoft which hit an iceberg in January 1959. After sending urgent SOS messages, the ship then sunk in a matter of hours with all 59 aboard perishing. It is the most recent ship to have been sunk with casualties by an iceberg.
wL716 TIL that the Empty Sky 9/11 Memorial in Jersey City consists of two parallel stainless steel walls, each 210 feet long by 30 feet high, that not only remember the names of the 476 New Jersey victims but also illuminate a dramatic halo of light that touches each name at dusk and at dawn.