› added 10 months ago

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TIL that in 1518 there was a outbreak of a 'dancing plague' in Strasbourg, in which hundreds of people inexplicably danced for weeks on end, claiming lives of victims along the way…

YpW4Z TIL the Marshallese used map charts made of sticks to navigate the Marshall Islands in canoe. They displayed the major ocean swell patterns and how the islands disrupted them. The charts are only interpretable by their makers who would memorize them before their voyages. They were used up until WW2.
kOVbm TIL the Native American greeting of "How" in many Westerns was a real greeting used by speakers of Lakota-Sioux. The word was used only between men.
MeAaB TIL Christopher Boyce, a college drop out who despised the CIA was given high level security clearance to handle top secret CIA wires. He then sold these top level secrets to the Soviet Union through its embassy in Mexico City. The story was a top selling book and movie "The Falcon and the Snowman"
oRB6o TIL Australia has 2 active volcanoes on Heard & McDonald Islands, one of the remotest places on earth. It is very cold, mostly barren, erupts frequently and has many wrecks around it. It has 71 species of fungi and was recently involved in legal proceedings between two entities (Australia & the UK).
pNde TIL that in 1997, four years before being arrested for spying for the KGB, Robert Hanssen was caught using a password cracker on a federal computer. When asked about this, he said that he was simply trying to install a color printer, and so he needed the administrator password. They believed him.