› added 6 years ago

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TIL Despite having little demand for whale products, Soviet whaling fleets illegally (and secretly) killed over 180,000 whales, driving several species to the brink of extinction.

W7kWN TIL that Toyota is headquartered in the city of Toyota, Japan and was founded there, but is not named after the city. In fact, the city (originally called Koromo) renamed itself after the company in 1959, because Toyota had become so famous.
R5eP7 TIL Canada's deadliest terror attack, the 1985 Air India Flight 182 bombing, killed 329 people. Multiple warnings from informants including recorded audio detailing the bombing plan were mishandled by authorities, leading to only one person being sentenced to 5 years in prison.
b9agE TIL: Some occupations are overrepresented in serial killers. The skilled labor jobs are aircraft mechanics, shoemakers, and car upholsterers. The semi-skilled/ unskilled jobs are arborists, Truckers, laborers, hotel porters, and gas station attendants.
QNJK6 TIL about Robert Evans, a church minister and an amateur astronomer who holds the record for visual discoveries of supernova. Utilizing nothing more than modest telescopes sited in his own backyard and an astonishing visual memory for star fields and galactic features, Evans has discovered 39 supern
D1PbD TIL: In 1745 Hannah Snell joined the British Army by disguising herself as a man, she managed to keep her gender a secret even though she received 500 lashes and was shot in the groin. After her service she revealed her identity and was eventually awarded a military pension.