› added 5 years ago

73

TIL that up to 1,500 raccoons were imported to Japan as pets each year after the success of the anime series Rascal the Raccoon (1977). In 2004, the descendants of discarded or escaped animals lived in 42 of 47 prefectures.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

Egpn0 TIL As secretary for the chancellery in 1503, Machiavelli was dispatched to Rome to gather intel and report on the new conclave after Pius III died 26 days into his papacy. He reported the % Giuliano Della Rovere was expecting to get and had the news of his election hours before it was announced
jwYE TIL Warner Bros. kept George Clooney’s return to ER in the episode “Such Sweet Sorrow” a secret by submitting a version of the episode without him to NBC and at the last minute submitting an “Edited” version that included his cameo, without any time for NBC to screen it before it aired.
J1LOj TIL a 5-year-old girl from Oklahoma defeated 52 other children to win a regional spelling bee and qualified for the 2017 national event. She is the youngest participant to secure a spot in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. She spelled such challenging words as jnana, sarsaparilla and Baedeker.
b6mo7 TIL that ~10% of the population has an extra vertebra in their spinal column. It's adjacent to the tailbone and can be a cause of lower back pain and decrease in flexibility. Most people with it experience no symptoms, however.
OGJZa TIL in the US in 1996, Georgia State Representative Doug Teper unsuccessfully sponsored a bill to replace that state's electric chair with the guillotine.