› added 10 years ago

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TIL some weapons and chemicals forbidden by armies to use during war are actively used on civilians, including Tear Gas.

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9wYAM TIL that the ‘Easter Bunny’ originated in Germany because of its prolific fertility, symbolizing birth and the start of life around springtime. During famine, eggs were dyed and gifted to children in Easter time and like that, the two concepts merged into the modern day Easter Bunny.
6byl TIL in the 1600s, slavers from what is now Algeria and Morocco raided a village in Ireland, selling dozens into a life of slavery in Africa. The raid has been immortalized in the names of pubs like the Algiers Inn.
pbkA TIL Over 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci made an interesting observation about trees. He concluded that the total thickness of a tree’s branches is equal to the total thickness of the tree trunk. Trees across many species obey this rule. Explanations involve hydrological and structural theories.
WQ09 TIL that Ronald Reagan gave info on fellow actors to the FBI, and later received political favors from J Edgar Hoover
6npw TIL of “imprints”, hand-reared falconry birds sexually attracted to their keepers. To breed an imprint, the keeper “lets the male bird copulate with his head” while wearing a special hat for semen collection