› added 5 months ago

22

TIL that Calixa Lavallée, the Canadian musician who composed the music for 'O Canada', spent two years as a band musician in the Union Army during the American Civil War

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9YlGD TIL When a flock of starlings are murmurating (flying in those shape-shifting patterns) Each individual birds' movements are copied by 7 of its closest neighbours, and each of those neighbours' movements affect 7 more and so on through the flock.
R5dX9 TIL that while great apes can learn hundreds of sign-language words, they never ask questions.
V5Bp TIL the Sun is the most perfect sphere ever observed in nature.
M7DYb TIL cats have fewer toes on their back feet
R78oa TIL that Trader Joe's claimed to have invented the 'puff dog', a hot dog in puff pastry, not realising that the UK and other Commonwealth countries have had virtually the same thing for decades.