› added 6 months ago

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TIL: After a promise to his daughter, it took Walt Disney 20 years to finally obtain the rights to Mary Poppins

J1mk TIL there is a bog here in Florida that was an ancient burial pond and contains human remains that were buried almost 2000 years before the first pyramids. The skeletal remains were preserved so well that they managed to collect soft brain tissue from the skulls.
WNO4 TIL that Senegalese Peacekeeper, Captain Mbaye Diagne, disobeyed the UN mandate and personally saved “as many as 600” Rwandans during the genocide. He was killed by a mortar shell a month before the genocide ended.
Z8OjY TIL that Napoleon was of average height for his era and that his reputation as a short man was largely spread through the works of British satirical cartoonist James Gillray. His satire was so effective that Napoleon once said that Gillray "did more than all the armies of Europe to bring me down."
pY71Q TIL that eight mussels with sensors glued to their shells are used to evaluate water quality in the city of Poznań, Poland. If the water becomes polluted, they mussles close their shells. If four mussels close simultaneously, the system shuts down automatically.
V0Lm TIL John Adams felt that though independence and a free government sounded appealing in theory, he feared “that in every assembly, members will obtain an influence by noise, not sense. By meanness, not greatness. By ignorance, not learning. By contracted hearts, not large souls.”