› added 8 months ago

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TIL that horses, while strongly associated with European and Asian history, actually originated in North America. Their ancestors evolved here over 55 million years ago!

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9YkjB TIL about Melanesia Sergeant Major Jacob Vouza who was captured by the Japanese, hung from a tree and beaten with rifles, tied to a red ant hill, bayonetted seven times in the chest and once in the throat, but still managed to chew through his restraints and deliver news of the impending attack
b9aE4 TIL The founding father of modern Vietnam is Ho Chi Minh that led Vietnam's communist revolution against French colonial rule and then took on the US has long had an admiration for the US and repeatedly sought the country's help in the decades before the Vietnam War.
gMnmL TIL that Benjamin Franklin predicted the time of death of a fellow almanac publisher in his own almanac. When the date came and passed with nothing happening, Franklin published the obituary anyway, and insisted that the still-alive man was actually being impersonated by someone else.
vPKkB TIL that bed bugs have no courtship rituals. What they have, instead, is a type of mating behavior called traumatic insemination. That is, a male will simply climb onto a female, stab her in the side of her body with his hypodermic penis, and release his sperm into her body cavity.
a8Oyb TIL George McGovern accidentally bombed an Austrian farm during WWII. He was haunted for 40 years until after a TV interview, when the farmer called the station to reassure him that he and his family got out in time and that it was worth it if it helped bring down Hitler in any way.