› added 4 years ago

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TIL that in the boat-naming poll that eventually resulted in Boaty McBoatface, Spanish trolls attempted to name the boat Blas de Lezo, after a Spanish admiral who defeated and humiliated the British Royal Navy in 1741. The organizers removed the name after it gained traction.

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8wdG TIL that a mathematician wrote a physics paper for a scientific journal in the plural form as a sole author. Instead of rewriting the paper in the first person or looking for a coauthor as the journal required, he chose to add his cat as a coauthor.
eprP4 TIL sloths only poo once a week and can lose up to a third of their body weight with one poo. They come down from trees and dig a hole to poo in, and no one is sure why they risk their lives to do this
OoLrX TIL of Betty Robinson, who won Olympic gold in the 1936 Olympics, after having survived a plane crash, wrongly declared dead, and a 6 month coma.
6EJAw TIL that real dead bodies were to be used on the set of 'Apocalypse Now' to provide authenticity; their supplier, who also provided supplies to medical schools for autopsies, was a grave robber
0wmNM TIL At the end of WW2 30,000 copies of Munro Leaf's 'The Story of Ferdinand' were given out to German children in order to encourage peace. It had previously been banned under Hitler.