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TIL the British Navy battled the French Navy in WWII.
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nationalinterest.org
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TIL that flying a black Jolly Roger signaled piracy and offered your victim the option to surrender. Flying a red Jolly Roger signaled that no quarter would be given and your ship was about to be taken with no mercy.
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TIL that Bradbury wrote the entire novel “Fahrenheit 451” in the basement of UCLA’s Powell Library on a pay typewriter that he rented for a fee of ten cents per half an hour. It took him only 9,80$ and 9days.
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TIL that carriers of Phenylketonuria, an inherited genetic disorder of the metabolism, are protected against the fungal toxin Ochratoxin A that occurs in grains. This accounts for the persistence of the allele in certain populations: it confers a "selective advantage."
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TIL scientists made a mouse utopia called Universe 25. It started with 4 males and 4 females, peaked at 2200 mice, then declined to extinction - the mice lost instinctual behavors. Humans now demonstrate similar traits.
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TIL that in 1962, the Tanganyika laughter epidemic caused contagious laughter in 1000 people in Tanzania, and resulted in 14 schools being shut down.