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TIL that a preying mantis can kill a hummingbird by stabbing its leg through the bird’s chest.

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Mebom TIL Apple’s smartphone wasn’t the first iPhone, the first was made by Cisco 22 days earlier. The Cisco “iPhone” was a VoIP device that allowed its customers to use Skype without a computer. The companies later settled the trademark lawsuit, with both keeping rights to the iPhone name.
XvB8 TIL: The word ‘Freelance’ comes from 1820 novel ‘Ivanhoe’. It meant a mercenary knight with no allegiance who offered his services in exchange for money.
xVp1b TIL that on the night that John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln, his co-conspirator was supposed to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson. The co-conspirator lost his nerve and got drunk instead
WkxrL TIL the Japanese high-speed rail system has a network of seismometers that will stop their bullet trains in the event of an earthquake. This system was activated just 12 seconds before the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and as a result, only one bullet train on its test run derailed that day.
197W TIL an obscure mathematical principle called Zipf’s law has predicted the size of mega-cities all over the world. And nobody knows why.