› added 4 years ago

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TIL of the Ozark Hellbender salamander, aka the Snot Otter, Lasagna Lizard, or Grampus. At 3-5 lbs with undulating skin, it reminded settlers of "horrible tortures of the infernal regions." But now it's endangered (only 590 left), so to raise awareness, Pennsylvania made it their state amphibian

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OG6YX TIL Gordon Lightfoot was inspired to write "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" when he saw the name misspelled as "Edmond" in Newsweek magazine. He felt the misspelling dishonored the memory of the 29 men who died when the freighter sank in Lake Superior during a storm on November 10, 1975.
woD9Y TIL that there is a Giant Panda boot camp in China, that teaches captive Pandas survival skills before they are released into the wild.
b9b4p TIL that Cayman Island is just 260 Sq. Km (approx 16 km*16 km) with a population of nearly 65,000 has nearly 100,000 registered companies with a ratio of 1.5 companies per person. Caymanians have the highest standard of living in the Caribbean. Their currency = 1.2 US $.
4ke06 TIL when Alexander Kerensky died in New York City in 1970, local Russian orthodox church refused to grant him burial rites for being a Freemason and seeing him as responsible for the Bolsheviks taking power. He was flown to London and buried in a non-denominational cemetery.
4DD5 TIL A California couple found over 1,400 Double Eagle gold coins from the late 1800s stowed in tin cans on their property. The value of the coins is estimated at $10 million.