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726

TIL In 1996, the Vancouver Aquarium became the first in the world to pledge to never again capture a wild whale or dolphin. Its first killer whale was captured in 1964, making it the first in the world to study orcas under human care

grmL8 TIL that on April 12, 1945, a tornado outbreak occurred in the Midwestern United States, killing at least 128 people. However, the concurrent news of the death of president Franklin D. Roosevelt overshadowed news of the outbreak.
7Vyr TIL after WWII, a group of Jewish-extremists formulated a Holocaust-revenge plan to kill 6 million German citizens by poisoning the water-supply of Munich, Berlin, Weimar, Nuremberg and Hamburg. However, it was foiled by British police while the poison was in transit to Germany.
VMK64 TIL Army vet Gregory Holeman needed a ride to the hospital but didn't know if Veterans Affairs covered an ambulance not pre-authorized. He asked his sister to call a social worker but she misdialed & Jimmy John's answered; JJ delivery driver Zack Hillmer (a U.S. Navy vet) drove him to the hospital.
r7kM TIL that Ben Franklin wasn’t allowed to write the declaration of Independence because it was feared that he would hide a joke in it.
w4M6 TIL that J. R. R. Tolkien might have gotten the idea for a ring that makes its wearer invisible from an ancient, Greek story told by one of Plato’s students about a shepherd discovering such a ring on a cadaver in a cave, and then using it to kill his king