› added 8 years ago

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TIL A species of bird called the Passenger Pigeon once numbered in the billions in the US, and flocks passing overhead would blot out the sun sometimes for hours or days. They were hunted to extinction for their meat by 1900.

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vYo7 TIL that if you’re bilingual, you can be dyslexic in one language and not the other.
nbNo TIL that male dolphins have been known to masturbate by wrapping live eels around their penises
8aJeK Today I learned about how glamorous commercial aviation was before WWII, with inter-continental flights in the Pan-Am Clipper. As glamorous as taking a cruise ship, but in a plane that landed on water.
R77b6 TIL A British Soldier Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart was a one-eyed, one-handed war hero who fought in both world wars, surviving plane crashes and PoW camps. He later said "frankly I had enjoyed the war."
9mYG TIL of David Kootook, a 14 year old Inuit boy who survived for 23 days in -40 degree weather after a plane crash in the Arctic. He refused offers by the pilot to eat the body of a fellow passenger and died of starvation 23 days later. Upon rescue, the pilot said “Welcome to the camp of a cannibal.”