› added 11 years ago

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TIL The Catholic Church unknowingly made Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) a saint after the Christianization of his life story in the 14th century.

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6kv7 TIL electric eels are not technically eels, but are actually a species of nearly scaleless knife fish.
Z1mY TIL China practices “Panda Diplomacy” wherein the government gifts Pandas to other countries to improve their relations, a practice dating back to the 600s
GA1EG TIL a border collie named Rico was the subject of the first published study on gifted dogs. The research showed that Rico understood 200 words. He also responded correctly to the word for a new object after hearing it just once. This suggested he had the canine equivalent of the ability to fast map.
KOxJE TIL that a U.S. Department of Defense Strategic Command has documents that describes a plan for defending against zombies. It is used as a means of training students in military planning.
LbPv TIL that George Washington was almost killed by a British Sniper at the Battle of Brandywine - he was spared since he had his back turned to the marksman.