› added 10 years ago

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TIL The Average Potato Has Lost 100% of its Vitamin A Since 1951

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via reddit.com

e0PV4 TIL about an Indian maharaja who legally adopted 1000 Ukrainian children orphaned by WW2. He took them to India, kept them safe and brought in Ukrainian teachers to educate them, all using his own money.
8a0e8 TIL about the real-life Lord of the Flies, i.e. what happened when six teenage boys were shipwrecked on a deserted island for 15 months
KOmva TIL sharks are called "swimming noses" because 2/3 of their brains are olfactory lobes. They can smell blood in water at 1 part per million from hundreds of meters away. But their sense of taste isn't linked to their nose and is not as developed, so often they bite once then decide not to kill.
KYB76 TIL Fatima. a city in Portugal is named after a kidnapped Muslim princess who fell in love with a Christian knight. married him and converted to Christianity then she changed her name,
A1Gg TIL in 1955, Sears published a phone number that kids could use to “call Santa”. However, due to a misprint, the number Sears printed redirected to NORAD’s top secret emergency line. Rather than having the ad pulled, NORAD decided to “track” Santa’s progress, which they continue to do to this day.