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TIL of Nightingale floors which are designed to make a chirping sound when walked upon. The squeaking floors were used as a security device, assuring that none could sneak through corridors undetected. According to myth these floors were developed as a means of defense against ninjas

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1adn4 TIL about St. Pierre and Miquelon, a territorial collectivity of France only 16 miles from Canada where the locals speak French, use the Euro and have French citizenship.
R7Gyl TIL That excessive caffeine ingestion leads to symptoms that overlap with those of many psychiatric disorders. In psychiatric in-patients, caffeine has been found to increase anxiety, hostility and psychotic symptoms.
gEQA TIL of Starfish. A 60’s US military experiment designed to see what would happen when a nuke was detonated 250 miles above Earth’s magnetic pole. It resulted in an EMP 900 miles wide, an intense artificial aurora, and a radiation belt that disabled 1/3 of the low orbit satellites and lasted 5 years.
8epJa TIL that the term Gaslighting comes from a 1938 play and a 1944 film, in which an abusive husband Gregory manipulates his wife Paula to make her feel as if she has gone mad. One of the ways he does this is by dimming and brightening the gaslights, all while convincing Paula that its all in her head.
9w88M TIL: the main reason why pigeons are so numerous in cities is that this environment is similar to their place of origin: seaside cliffs of the Mediterranean. Pigeons of today are descended from those that escaped captivity when they were popular as pets.