› added 4 years ago

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TIL that Pink Floyd’s 1977 album “Animals” was loosely based off of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” but rather than satirizing communism, the album blasts capitalism

KYYMG TIL that a 1982 Harvard study confirmed that Tibetan monks can raise their body temperature with their minds. Practitioners of "g-tummo" yoga demonstrated the ability to raise the temperature of different parts of their bodies through meditation alone.
yrBM TIL nobody knows who built the Taj Mahal. The names of the architects, masons, and designers that have come down to us have all proved to be latter-day inventions, and there is no evidence to indicate who the real creators were.
l5l1 TIL that sea stars (starfish) are actually top predators feared by everything else in their habitat. Removing them causes widespread effects throughout the ecosystem, just like removing wolves from the forest or lions from the savannah.
8eRrX TIL the "heart burial" coincided with the Crusades where, rather than sending a whole body back for burial, they just transported the deceased’s heart preserved in lead or ivory boxes, often with spices to keep it from smelling too much.
D1gGV TIL in WWII, weather reports were censored to prevent enemy submarines from learning about conditions. A football game in Chicago was so covered in fog that the radio announcer couldn’t see the field, but afterwards he was officially thanked for never using the word “fog” or mentioning the weather.