› added 5 years ago

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TIL during the San Francisco plague of 1900-1904, the governor of California denied the existence of the place for two years for business reasons, to protect the reputations of San Francisco and to prevent the loss of revenue due to quarantine, allowing the disease to spread unchecked.

P1Y1n TIL in 1950 the Boyscouts of America ran a 40th anniversary campaign called "Strengthen the Arm of Liberty" where they sent ~200 copper replicas of the Statue of Liberty around the US. Despite being over 8' tall and weighing 260lb, many have been lost and now only ~100 can be accounted for.
K0jR TIL that the largest virus in the world has been called the Pandoravirus. They bore no morphological or genomic resemblance to any previously defined virus families leading the researchers to speculate that this virus may represent a previously unknown branch of the tree of life.
0dMxA TIL about Garderobe, Toilets in a Medieval Castle that were usually built into the walls, like a simple hole discharging to the outside into a cesspit (akin to a pit latrine) or the castle moat (like a fish pond toilet). It was believed that ammonia would protect visitors' coats and cloaks from moth
e01l5 TIL of the Pazzi conspiracy, an attempt by the Pazzi family to assassinate Lorenzo de Medici and his brother Giuliano and displace the Medici family as the rulers of renaissance era Florence. Lorenzo survived the plot and the way he dealt with it led to greater public support for the Medici regime.
nRJY TIL: Some tarantulas keep frogs as pets so they will eat insects that burrow into their nest