› added 1 year ago

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TIL that scientists have discovered a tiny parasitic wasp that turns spiders into zombie bodyguards. This wasp, known as Dicopomorpha echmepterygis, injects its eggs into a spider, which then continues to perform its regular tasks but ultimately sacrifices itself to protect the developing wasps.

nae7 TIL that Benjamin Franklin was an avid swimmer, and while in London in his 20s swam 3 ½ miles from Chelsea to Blackfriars, impressed onlookers with “feats of activity,” and seriously considered staying in England for good to found a swimming school and earn his fortune.
v1VpB TIL Episode 122 of The Twilight Zone, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, was a French film short that had won awards at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962 and an Oscar for Live Action Short Film in 1963. Producers paid $25,000 for rights that limited them to airing the story no more than two times.
6pG7 TIL that in the 60s the US struck a deal with the UK to buy an unpopulated Indian ocean island for a military base. The UK didn’t have an unpopulated island, so it forcibly expelled the inhabitants of the British Indian Ocean Territory until it WAS uninhabited.
VBoEm TIL Quebec French swear words are based on words and expressions related to Catholicism
Lk8Xd TIL Wernher Von Braun wasn't just a member of the Nazi Party, he was an SS Sturmbannführer (Major). Thousands of prisoners died excavating his underground rocket factory, Kohnstein, to keep production safe from allied bombing. The US Army later kept these crimes against humanity classified.