› added 5 years ago

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TIL for over 70 years, allied navy ships in the Pacific fought over a photo of actress Esther Williams. Ships officers would steal or take it by force, and display it in their ship’s officers mess. It was retired in 2013 after Esther Williams died.

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JPB4 TIL that Bob Odenkirk, best known for playing Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad, was originally cast to play Michael Scott from the Office, but last minute schedule changes resulted with Steve Carell getting the role
ZpPDQ TIL: Arctic means "Bear", and Antarctic "No bear", because the Big Dipper, "the greater she-bear", is always visible in the northern pole sky. The fact that there are Polar bears in the Arctic but not in the Antarctic continent is purely a coincidence.
4wYo TIL Greenland got its name because the Viking who discovered it was banished from Iceland and felt lonely in his new homeland, so he named and advertised it as the lush ‘Greenland’ to attract settlers, despite the fact that it was actually a completely barren and largely uninhabitable land
1aPgX TIL that long-beaked echidnas have four-headed penises and are known as monotremes, meaning egg laying mammals. This perhaps hints at early mammalian evolution from reptiles. These guys are sadly critically endangered owing to habitat loss!
69P6W TIL Runner’s trots or Gingerbread Man is the sudden and explosive need to empty one’s bowels in the heat of a race. This occurs due to shunting of blood away from the intestines and toward the muscles. Runners also lose control of both their interior and exterior sphincter muscles at the anal canal