› added 5 years ago

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TIL that other than humans, chimpanzees and rats are the only animals that can laugh.

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rRNWW TIL that 'decimate' is actually a reference to the roman practice of punishing large groups of people (e.g. battalions that performed poorly) by dividing the cohort into groups of ten, having each group cast lots, and have the nine individuals kill the single unlucky individual in each group.
m111Y TIL Ancient Egyptians used to bury Sacred Bulls in 60+ tonne sarcophagi, two dozen of them remain in the Serapeum of Saqqara
6EpZJ TIL William Faulkner wrote his masterpiece As I Lay Dying in 6 weeks without ever changing a word after it was written
mnOO TIL the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), much like the FBI, has its own list of most wanted fugitives.
WkMLX TIL that the first ever science fiction novel, 'A True Story' was written in the second century AD. The novel includes travel to the outer space, flying to the Moon, alien lifeforms, interplanetary warfare and continents across the ocean.