› added 5 years ago

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TIL 97% of Britain’s wildflower meadows have disappeared since the end of WW2. These meadows supported pollinating insects for food crops, helped mitigate flooding by holding on to rain water, and captured vast amounts of carbon.

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8e8JP TIL School clocks were initially synchronized by pneumatic tubes that pushed the hands simultaneously in every classroom, from 1877 into the 1920s, when electric impulses were used. Factories and office buildings quickly switched to these systems as well.
E1JNX TIL that when a dead whale washed up on an Oregon beach, they decided the best way to dispose of the body was to detonate it, unintentionally covering the townspeople in whale blood.
Z8YbQ TIL according to studies,an estimate of 1 million fathers in the U.S. are unknowingly raising another man's child.
0w8Pj TIL that TV show Top Gear conducted an extreme test of a Toyota pickup truck by leaving it on a beach to be taken by the tide, leaving it on top of a highrise building that was demolished, and setting it on fire. It still ran after being repaired with only the tools in the truck's toolbox.
OGP9a TIL that today's the 40th anniversary of Joe Delaney's heroic sacrifice: The 24-year-old Kansas City Chiefs RB saw 3 kids drowning in a pond on June 29, 1983. Despite not knowing how to swim, Joe jumped in & saved 1 boy before succumbing to the water himself.