› added 5 years ago

181

TIL that pooping is one of the required characteristics for something to be classified as "alive"

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VMgkG TIL that the US Postal Service's unofficial motto ("Neither rain nor snow...") was first used in 440 BC by Herodotus, who was impressed by the Persian Empire's messenger system.
j6KpR TIL that after his crew on the USS Tangier performed dismally on a training exercise in Pearl Harbor, Captain Clifton Sprague told them "We’re not prepared. We can’t trust the Japanese. How do you know the Japanese won’t attack tomorrow?" The next day, December 7th, the Japanese attacked.
r57M TIL: Johannes Kepler, one of the greatest contributors to astronomy, couldn’t see the stars/planets due to small-pox he contracted as a child.
QJO1L TIL of Herman Francis Mark, an Austrian scientist and son of a Jew, who chose to flee Austria in 1938. He clandestinely bought platinum wire, worth roughly $50,000, which he bent into coat hangers while his wife knitted covers so that the hangers were able to be taken out of the country
XEj6Q TIL Dr. Alan Hirsch, author of "What Flavor Is Your Personality?: Discover Who You Are by Looking at What You Eat," discovered that certain food scents trigger sexual arousal in both sexes. The baked scent of cinnamon buns & vanilla aroused men, while Good & Plenty candy-cucumber odor aroused women.