› added 1 week ago

5

TIL the medical examination to fight in the Civil War was to only show your hands and feet

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M8OK TIL that when the Nazi Party held its first book burnings, one of the works destroyed was an 1821 play by Heinrich Heine containing the famous phrase “Where they burn books, they will also in the end burn people.”
yj48 TIL - It would take 1,200,000 mosquitoes to completely drain the average human of blood
WklnL TIL Zoos use birth control on their animals in captivity to regulate breeding.
ZplwY TIL that 17 million telegrams are still sent every year. By comparison, over 200 billion e-mails are sent every day. They are most commonly sent to meet certain legal requirements or to express congratulations or condolences.
xM6g TIL the infamous “hobbling” scene in Misery was originally written to be even ghastlier, but several directors and actors refused to film it. Harrison Ford, Robert de Niro, and others refused to star in the film, partly because of the scene.