› added 9 years ago

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TIL that in 1984 a Beluga whale named Noc learned to warble in a human voice that was so convincing it fooled a diver into thinking someone was shouting at him to get out of the water!

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ZpwMo TIL that after releasing two albums that flopped, Neil Young was sued by his label, Geffen Records, for releasing music with so little commercial appeal that it was "unrepresentative" of himself. After the lawsuit, he released two more albums on the same label, leading to lowest sales in his career.
5Yyxn Today I learned that Taiwan has 5 branches of government. Aside from Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches there's the Examination Yuan which validates qualifications of civil servants and the Control Yuan which is an investigative branch that audits, evaluates and prosecutes govt officials.
PYGAO TIL That the earliest recorded English song is “Mary had a little lamb” recorded by Edison in 1877
b971Z TIL people during the American Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s were encouraged to march in their finest clothes so as to reframe the very idea of what a disrupter looked like.
GAJP5 TIL that until earlier this year it was legal for apartments in Austin, Texas to have no windows, and that landlords often didn't disclose this in advertisements