› added 4 years ago

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TIL that when bonobos come upon a new food source, the increased excitement usually leads to communal sexual activity—presumably to decrease tension and encourage peaceful feeding.

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9Kvr TIL that 30 british officers tried to escape POW camp “Castle Colditz” (Oflag IV-C) by digging a tunnel. Because they read the compass wrong, they landed in the wine cellar of a german colonel. There they drank 137 bottles of wine, filled them with their urine and placed them back.
a886A TIL that whenever 9th Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson was absent from his plantation, Julia Chinn, an enslaved woman who was also his common-law wife, was put in charge of managing the entire plantation. All workers on the property were to obey her, even white employees.
kOZ7W TIL that in the Hawaiian language, there are over 200 different words for rain, depending on the colour, intensity, duration, accompanying wind, time of year, the paths the drops fall in, the area it falls in, and even if it falls shortly after a loved one's death.
6g08 TIL That Jesus is mentioned more often in the Quran than Muhammad while Mary is mentioned in the Quran more than the New Testament.
bODa TIL there exists a network of USB drives embedded in cement all over the world designed to be dead drops for files.