› added 2 years ago

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TIL Sherlock Holmes was inspired by a real person, Doyle based the character of Sherlock Holmes at least in part on Dr. Joseph Bell, a surgeon and professor at Edinburgh’s Royal College of Surgeons.

Read more arthur-conan-doyle.com

via reddit.com

6E9BY TIL White Tailed Sea Eagles went extinct in Scotland in 1916 due to hunting and egg collecting. In 1975 a breeding pair from Norway were re-introduced and in 2006 the 200th Sea Eagle egg hatched on the Isle of Skye.
R7n68 TIL of the Vela Incident, A nuclear explosion in the Indian ocean of unknown origin. The most widespread theory is that it was a joint Apartheid South African-Israeli nuclear test.
Xdkk TIL Pablo Escobar spent $2500 per month on rubber bands to hold stacks of bills together
VMbXZ TIL about Garden-Path Phrases such as "The old man the boat". They look wrong at first but they're 100% grammatically correct.
5YYYB TIL 100Mb/s was reliably sent over barbed wire to demonstrate Ethernet robustness in a Broadcom showcase