› added 6 years ago

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TIL that there used to be rat fishing tournaments in an ally behind a saloon in Baltimore. Men would rig fishing poles with traps and bait, cast them down the ally and try and catch the largest rat.

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via reddit.com

oR9Kr TIL about Jimmy Robinson, a US Air Force Piloted that died (marked MIA officially) after damage sustained flying through the mushroom cloud of Ivy Mike, the first thermonuclear bomb detonation. The flight was to gather information regarding the composition of the cloud, his body was never found.
x68G5 TIL some old British medicinal plant names have the suffix ‘wort’ with the first part of the name indicating the type of problem, giving us names like Liverwort, Spleenwort, Throatwort, Pilewort and Bollockwort
MeZLA TIL a Canadian engineer studying anti-ballistic missile systems developed a theoretical method for launching satellites via canon. He was likely assassinated by the Mossad in 1990
rRbje TIL the album "The Mollusk" by the 90s Indie band Ween was one of the primary inspirations for Spongebob.
yDk8 TIL reindeer herds being raised for meat in Norway still need to be tested for radioactivity due to fallout from the Chernobyl disaster. Reindeer that are too radioactive to eat are released into the wild.