› added 3 years ago

93

TIL that the planet Uranus was discovered before the continent of Antarctica

Read more polardiscovery.whoi.edu

via reddit.com

8eKA8 TIL the Gestapo compiled a "Black Book" listing prominent residents of Great Britain to be rounded up after a successful invasion. In addition to obvious names like Churchill, the Nazis set their sights on Bertrand Russell and Virginia Woolf.
8akBb TIL the US Army experimented with using "platoons" of geese to guard sites run by the 32nd Air Defense Command
DmWg TIL in 1941 the world’s largest seed bank (created by botanist Nikolai Vavilov) was housed in Leningrad. As the Germans surrounded the city forcing mass starvation, Vavilov’s scientists refused to eat from the collection, slowly dying of hunger as they maintained 16 rooms of edible plants.
neKPW TIL Dante Alighieri encountered prophet Muhammad in the ninth ditch of Malebolge (part of the Divine Comedy, the eighth circle of Hell)
6EDLw TIL the Bagworm Moth Caterpillar is one of the rare architects of the animal world. They construct miniature “log cabins” by collecting little twigs and building them into tiny protective houses which they live in! Some constructions look similar to a strand of DNA.