› added 4 years ago

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TIL that in 1874, the NY Herald published an article about a mass escape of wild animals from the zoo, concluding with "the story given above is a pure fabrication". Most readers overlooked the final paragraph, and it sparked a mass panic, with the NY Times editor leaving his house with two pistols

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ned8W TIL in 2002 three geriatric Catholic nuns broke into a US nuclear missile launch facility, vandalized it with hammers, and drew crosses on the silo with their own blood.
e08JL TIL Orca Whales are now known to hunt Great White and eat only their livers. Often extracting the livers with surprising accuracy and precision.
RJR1 TIL During WWII the Russians had their own independently developed “Jeep”, but because the Americans sent so many Jeeps to help, the Russians turned their own Jeeps into thousands of little armored cars. They were surprisingly successful and widely exported after the war.
Ypx6x TIL that when a random raccoon died in Toronto, people started paying their respects to it and build a small memorial with flowers and candles, even a picture, until the city took away the raccoon corpse.
96jX TIL it’s said that when Napoleon claimed to have the power to destroy the Catholic Church, a cardinal responded, “Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1,800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.”