› added 5 years ago

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TIL that the US has refused to continue funding the nuclear claims tribunal set up to compensate islanders that suffered radiation-related diseases from testing. So far it's paid less than $4 million of a $2.2 billion damage judgement. More than half of the affected islanders have died since.

R5en7 TIL the reputation of pigeons as "dirty" is fairly recent. The abundance of food in postwar North America attracted pigeons to cities, where their large numbers led to a large amount of defecation. Before that, juvenile pigeon meat, known as "squab", was a popular food source throughout the world.
gMPxy TIL Larry Fine of the Three Stooges burned his arm with acid as a child. His parents gave him violin lessons to strengthen the damaged nerves. He became so proficient on the violin that his parents planned to send him to a European music conservatory but the plan was thwarted by World War I.
byOZ TIL that Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island, formally donated his birthday by deed of gift to a friend’s daughter who felt cheated that her own birthday was December 25th.
AND9g TIL that the act of vomiting involves a complex series of chain-link reactions by your body that connect to a "vomit center" in the brain. The lower digestive system in cases of perceived poisoning shuts down and causes the stomach to convulse in order to bring everything back up the way it came in.
YpdQ7 TIL that Zoroastrian hell is said to have sinners forced to defecate and masturbate continually