› added 9 years ago

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TIL that they used rescue dog as ball catchers in the 2016 Brazil Open

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via reddit.com

E5Nd TIL that mustard gas led to chemotherapy. During a World War II air raid, German pilots hit an American ship which had a secret stockpile of mustard gas. Doctors noticed that the gas suppressed cell division, which could fight cancer.
LpVp TIL that a book attributed to Penelope Ashe was actually written by a group of 24 journalists. It was designed to be deliberately terrible with a lot of sex, to illustrate the point that American literary culture had become mindlessly vulgar. The book became a bestseller in 1969.
69B4l TIL due to over fishing taking out their competitors and and predators, squid populations are growing at an alarming rate
wobp1 TIL "Weird Al" Yankovic never got permissions from Prince to record parodies of his songs. Once, before the American Music Awards where he and Prince were assigned to sit in the same row, he got a telegram from Prince's management company, demanding he not even make eye contact with the artist.
gej4 TIL That vikings would use stones with polarization properties (like Iceland Spar) to navigate when the sun was not visible.