› added 9 years ago

514

TIL Texas maintains a database of death row inmates’ last words

Read more tdcj.state.tx.us

via ift.tt

A4bl TIL that up until the 1600s, a “black swan” was a metaphor for something that did not exist. Then a group of Dutch explorers became the first Europeans to see black swans in Western Australia in 1697, and the phrase was amended to mean “a perceived impossibility that might later be disproven.”
e0rL5 TIL That November 2, 2000 was the last time all humans were on the planet together. Since then at least one person has remained on the international space station
xVRd5 TIL Cats domesticated themselves. They existed unchanged until the Middle Ages; and even now are genetically extremely close to their ancestors.
X0aEX TIL that in the first Polish-language encyclopedia, the definition of Horse was: "Everyone can see what a Horse is"
4XELw At least one-third of early deaths could be prevented if everyone moved to a vegetarian diet, Harvard scientists have calculated.