› added 10 years ago

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TIL Elephants skeletal structuring is not designed to carry weight on their backs, but rather weight from below. Many Elephants end up with deformed and broken backs as a result of years of long hours spent carrying tourists around.

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M7Qa TIL that in 1953 the United States government detonated a nuclear bomb in Utah more powerful than Little Boy of Hiroshima. The bomb, nicknamed Harry, was known to the Utahans as Dirty Harry because of the large amount of fallout.
g1lD TIL that the word “orient” comes from the Latin word “oriens”, meaning East because in the Middle Ages many maps were drawn with East at the top. So to “orient” them you had to turn them so that East was facing up.
9wVar TIL that the magician Christopher Roller claimed to have godly powers and unsuccessfully tried to patent them and sue David Copperfield for stealing them.
gkdb TIL in Aug 1914 the Frank Lloyd Wright’s estate in WI was set on fire by a male servant. The servant then killed Wright’s mistress Mamah Cheney, her 2 children and 4 estate workers with an axe. Afterwards he drank muriatic acid but was caught and died in jail 7 weeks later from self starvation.
rNyWy TIL that fish are not silent underwater. They actually make a large variety of sounds, from clicking to squeals, with some even chirping like birds. These noises are used to communicate many different things, like warning off other fish or announcing the presence of a predator.