› added 4 years ago

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TIL about the "hijacking" of the oil tanker, Brillante Virtuoso in the Gulf of Aden in 2011. There pirate attack left the ship heavily damaged and it was scrapped. The owner attempted a $100 mil insurance claim, one of the primary inspectors was killed in a car bomb, others were harassed.

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neoeo TIL that in the 17th century, lacking chemical tests (and knowledge of disease transmission), Italian physician and autopsy pioneer Antonio Valsalva sometimes tasted the fluids he encountered in cadavers in an effort to better characterize them. "Gangrenous pus does not taste good," he wrote.
vGBR TIL that cats (mainly female) bring you dead animals such as mice because they don’t think you could have caught one on your own, all to teach you their hunting wisdom under natural instinct
gME69 Today I learned that in 2014 the US finished it’s largest dam removal in history on the Elwha river in Washington state. The once dammed reservoir of over 100 years, now flows freely and is once again booming with salmon, birds, moose, and even new beaches being formed by sediment!
YpPYP TIL William Goldman, writer of 'The Princess Bride', wrote the screenplay for his two daughters, who were 7 and 4 at the time. He asked them what they wanted to be in the story, with one saying a princess and one being a bride. He told them "That'll be the title."
Oddg TIL that Thomas Paine, one of America’s Founding Fathers, said all religions were human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind … only 6 people attended his funeral.