› added 10 months ago

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TIL that the moon has moonquakes that are caused by gravitational pull from both the Earth and the Sun.

M7MWK TIL of the Vai syllabary, a script used for writing the Vai language of Liberia. It is hypothesized to be based off the Cherokee script, used by the Indigenous Cherokee people in modern day South Eastern United States, and diffused from Cherokee migrants on the Liberian coast.
1YnV TIL the bad grammar and spelling errors found in scam emails & phishing attempts from Nigerian princes (etc) is done on purpose; spell checkers are intentionally not used: Research from Microsoft suggests that email scammers maximise profits by entrapping only the most gullible who overlook spelling
QJVLk TIL that bumblebees can fly higher than Mount Everest. It’s difficult for most insects and birds to fly at extremely high altitudes where the air is thin and oxygen is scarce but researchers were able to track some bumblebees that were able to fly at more than 9000 metres.
E1pnX TIL that during the French Revolution the bodies of over 100 French royals were exhumed and tipped into mass graves. Parts of them were also seized; one man took "Dagobert’s jaw, a section of Saint Louis’ skull, the teeth of Henry III, Philippe Auguste’s hair and the leg of Catherine de' Medici".
4OyN TIL in one of the earliest instances of investigative journalism (1872), a reporter with the New York Tribune had himself commited/sectioned in order to report on abuse in mental asylums. His work led to the release of twelve incorrectly diagnosed patients and a change in the “lunacy laws.”