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TIL it took Frederick Forsyth just over a month to write The Day of the Jackal

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epRAL TIL that Sharks are older than Trees - Sharks have been around for at least 400 million years and have survived all five global mass extinctions. Fossil evidence shows that the earliest sharks evolved around 450 million years ago. By comparison, trees appeared just 360 million years ago.
kJZB5 TIL the motte and bailey fallacy: a deceptive argument where someone initially presents a controversial claim (the "bailey"), but when challenged, switches to a more easily defensible, seemingly similar claim (the "motte"), then reasserts the original, controversial claim as if proven
16vpX TIL that Kurt Waldheim was 'accidentally' elected UN Secretary-General in 1971, after the US, the UK, and China failed to coordinate their vetoes.
l77AG TIL that a frequently-posted image claiming that a woodpecker’s brain is protected by their tongue wrapping around their brain, isn’t true. It’s simply because their brain is so small, that the decelerations involved in pecking don’t cause brain damage.
MejNV TIL about hypnagogia, the transition between wakefulness and sleep during which many hallucinations can occur, including the sensation of being bigger/smaller than yourself, floating, or falling.