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TIL that Europeans arrived in the Americas before arriving in Japan

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5pQ8 TIL that Lil Wayne was saved at 12 years old by a white police officer named Uncle Bob. “He was white as snow…my life was saved by a white man. I don’t know what racism is. I know a good mother fucker named Uncle Bob though”
9wO7r TIL that 2 million discarded tires were deliberately dumped off the coast of Florida in the 1970’s, with the intent to stimulate growth of new coral reefs. Instead, the tires ended up killing off nearby reefs. The tires are still causing damage today.
0we4R TIL in 1999 Professor Bill Ditto made a simple calculator using the neurons taken out of leeches; word's first biological computer. It was aptly named the "leech-ulator".
0wwVy TIL that 12,000 bears are farmed for their bile in Asia which is used in traditional Chinese medicine and generates $2bn per year. Farming always involves surgery on the bears to insert a catheter or to cut a hole through the abdomen by which the bile leaks. Bear bile has no medicinal effect.
nJZd TIL there is a species of bird which guides humans to beehives, so that they can feast on the bee larvae after the human takes the honey.