› added 2 months ago

6

TIL an older theory held that individual giraffes stretched their necks to reach higher leaves. However, modern evolutionary biology attributes this trait to natural selection, where individual giraffes with relatively longer necks survived and passed this attribute to their offspring.

Read more britannica.com

via reddit.com

dDvDK TIL that Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup was a patent medicine marketed to calm small children which contained a dangerous amount of morphine and alcohol.
LPZ9 TIL at the age of 14 Andrew Jackson was captured by the British. An officer order Jackson to clean his boots, Jackson refused. The office hit him in the face with his sword leaving a life long scar on his cheek.
W7pYX TIL about anthropodermic bibliopegy, the practice of binding books in human skin that was popular in the 19th century.
Z8wW4 TIL when The South's Gonna Do It Again by Charlie Daniels Band, a song about Southern rock, was used by the KKK, Daniels said "I'm damn proud of the South, but I sure as hell am not proud of the Ku Klux Klan. [..] It was not written to promote hate groups."
woPQY TIL The Antarctic Treaty was signed in Washington on 1 December 1959 by twelve countries who agreed to only use the continent for peaceful research purposes. It entered into force in 1961 and has since been acceded to by 56 total nations.