› added 9 years ago

90

TIL there exists a musical work that consists only of silence, and predates John Cage’s 4'33’’ by 55 years

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VAx0 TIL the CDC uses the “Corrupted Blood” incident in World of Warcraft as a study aid on bioterrorism.
p8dop TIL of Maria Sibylla Merian, the naturalist who discovered the life cycle of butterflies and insects, painted them in breathtakingly accurate watercolors, and braved the jungles of Africa with her daughter to greatly advance the science of entomology.
DQKQv TIL Australia is the lowest and flattest continent in the world with an average elevation of only 1000 feet due to being near the centre of a tectonic plate
X0J4R TIL When the Mongols invaded Iraq in 1258 they not only burnt down the Grand Library (known as the House of Wisdom), but many of the books were also torn apart by pillagers so that the leather covers could be made into sandals
v14eB TIL that bird populations in the US and Canada dropped by approximately 3 billion, which is around 29%, since 1970