› added 2 years ago

58

TIL "breatharians" have killed several people since the 1980s through starvation / dehydration

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Ooyd7 TIL that the ACLU was originally founded as the Civil Liberties Bureau after World War I broke out in 1917 to oppose the creation of a draft and protect conscientious objectors to World War I.
mMPP TIL of Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Roman Emperor. 563 years ago today, as Ottoman cannons breached the once-mighty Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, he donned the appearance of a common soldier and led his remaining men to one last valiant charge in the name of Rome and their home.
5YrGk TIL Honeybees can be trained to locate landmines due to their acute sense of smell. Croatian scientists mixed a sugar solution with a small amount of TNT — and after about five minutes of hunting for this doped sugar solution, the honeybees are trained to flock to the smell of TNT.
7r7N7 TIL in 1817 an English man named Abraham Thornton successfully avoided a murder charge by demanding "trial by battle." It turned out that the practice was still technically allowed under the law despite having not been used for hundreds of years. Parliament finally abolished it one year later.
9Yjbp TIL a Japanese man noticed food disappearing in his fridge so he set up a security camera and found out there was a homeless woman living in the top compartment of his closet and been there for more than a year.