› added 8 years ago

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TIL Bird populations are plummeting, and cats alone are responsible for killing billions of birds every year in the lower 48 states.

Read more news.nationalgeographic.com

via ift.tt

WkyZd TIL that medieval moats served not only the purpose of being a physical barrier, but when water-filled were also able to prevent enemies from tunneling and undermining a wall, by saturating the ground making tunneling very difficult.
VBRlG TIL that the animation film Stand by Me Doraemon helped ease diplomatic tensions between China and Japan.
r8D1 TIL in 1975 a cat was listed as co-author on a physics paper because the author had incorrectly used the royal “we” throughout the paper and didn’t want to typewrite the whole thing again
NKPM TIL Tolkien’s book “The Two Towers” is ambiguous with regard to the title as any pair from the five towers in the story could plausibly fit the title. Tolkien drew a cover illustration showing the towers he meant but the publisher decided not to use it in order to save money.
vQX7 TIL when introducing the character Agamemnon in “Time Bandits”, Terry Gilliam’s script read “The Greek warrior removes his helmet, revealing himself to be none other than Sean Connery, or an actor of equal but cheaper stature.” He wrote it as a joke never expecting Connery to be in the movie.