› added 4 years ago

218

TIL that, when Sierra Leone's 11-year civil war ended following intervention from the British military, the grateful public left graffiti in the streets of the capital that said, among other things, "Queen Elizabeth for king!"

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

E16Y0 TIL that to combat obesity, Chile passed a law that bans junk food ads aimed at children and prohibits the use of cartoon characters in their packaging
9w7Dr TIL that psychologist B. F. Skinner got pigeons to repeat strange "rituals" by dropping food into their cage at random intervals. The birds associated their actions before the treats with reward, and demonstrated superstitious repetition of those actions
v86K TIL studies of Raccoon’s showed that they can solve complex locks in less than 10 tries, and remember task solutions for up to three years. Their North American population has also increased up to 20 times since 1930. And they travel in same sex packs of 4.
JYKBl TIL Americans are the most charitable group of people in the entire world. "Americans are about twice as generous in their private giving as Canadians, and 3-15 times as charitable as the residents of other developed nations. Americans volunteer more than almost any other wealthy people."
YpLOd TIL the reason why the film industry is based in California because filmmakers were trying to get away from Thomas Edison, who owned all film production patents based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Edison was known to have sued any film-based company in the East Coast operating out of his control.