› added 3 months ago

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TIL the Erie Canal, completed in 1825, was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, and was called "The Nation's First Superhighway."

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M7JWV TIL that the majority of recorded sloth deaths in Costa Rica are due to contact with electrical lines and poachers. Their claws also provide another; when hanging upside-down in a tree, they are held in place by the claws themselves and often do not fall down even if shot from below.
JGBV TIL Christian Bale suffered from insomnia and wandered around Rome in the dark often seeing another figure walking alone in Rome. After many weeks he approached the other figure and it was Viggo Mortensen suffering the same disorder!
6EOgX TIL that, contrary to expectations, objects with greater drag generate less heat when entering the atmosphere. This is because a pocket of air forms in front of the object. After this was discovered in 1951, vehicles such as the Apollo capsule were designed to enter the atmosphere blunt-end first.
6bYJ TIL there is only one species of warm-blooded fish on Earth - the opah (Lampris guttatus)
ADaKo TIL about the Tinkerbell effect that states “things that are thought to exist only because people believe in them.” There is also a reverse Tinkerbell effect. It pertains to everything from religion to politics.