› added 7 years ago

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TIL in 1946, the British government attempted to plant 150,000 acres of peanuts in an African colony. After 5 years and nearly £50 million, not only had the project failed, but the land was ruined in the process, leaving it an unusable dust bowl.

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OoLmX TIL: An extinct bird came back from the dead. The white-throated rail was flightless and got completely wiped out when the island sunk below the sea around 136,000 years ago. But, the same bird re-appeared when sea levels fell again a few thousand years later, and again lost the ability to fly.
R5Kb6 TIL ancient Greek legends of Hyperborea, a land abundant in gold from whence the north wind blows and where griffins roam, may draw from the Dzungarian Gate mtn pass connecting China and Central Asia. There's even a (more farfetched) theory linking the legendary griffin to the area's dino fossils.
VM14G TIL that in 2006, a teacher and her students were trapped after their school disappeared under a huge mudslide in the Philippines. They managed to send text messages "We're still in one room, alive," But rescue proved dangerous, authorities were forced to conclude that no one had survived
VMyj8 TIL that ethereal singer Enya's vocals sometimes didn't translate well from existing Earth languages, so her collaborator Roma Ryan constructed an futuristic language called "Loxian" for her. Roma also created an online video game to educate others about Loxian culture.
59XQ TIL that there are more blacks on welfare in the US than any other race despite being ~13% of the population.