› added 8 years ago

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TIL Oxpeckers, the small birds you see in photos perching on antelopes & wildebeests (Elephants shake them off usually), were once thought to help by eating illness-causing ticks. It was found that the birds open wounds wider and drink the blood of their hosts - they’re parasites themselves.

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Mev1W TIL Inmates of a nazi labour camp in northern Germany's marshes were banned from singing political songs, so they wrote a "soldier" hymn to themselves being "peat bog soldiers". When the SS made them perform it at the "concentration camp circus" the anti-nazi song was so catchy, the SS sang along.
o6gK TIL that many animals (including humans) can’t absorb up to 50% of the energy in the food they consume; this undigested energy ends up in fecal matter, which is why feces are such an effective fertilizer.
l7e4A TIL that the studio that distributed the movie "Who Killed Captain Alex?", a 2010 Ugandan action comedy film produced on a reported budget of under $200, set up a Kickstarter campaign to raise $160 for a sequel. The studio was able to receive $13,181 and the sequel is currently in production
byWQ TIL that the 10 richest women in the world all inherited their wealth from either their father or late husband.
gMkM7 TIL in 1589, William Lee was refused a patent grant for his knitting machine after Elizabeth I feared automation would lead to mass unemployment