› added 6 years ago

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TIL that there are thousand year old bacteria and viruses hiding in the ice caps that if melted and released could cause a new wave of deadly diseases that we haven't experienced before.

Read more bbc.com

via reddit.com

DKvj TIL that when actor Glenn Shadix died in 2010 (who played Otho in the 1988 film ‘Beetlejuice’) the song 'Day-O’ by Harry Belafonte was played at his memorial service, a song he helped repopularize in that film’s famous dinner-party scene.
gr6DA TIL, that in the US, President Lincoln made the first federal observance of Thanksgiving on August 6, 1863. The holiday was changed to the last Thursday in November a few months later.
JYMgQ TIL the oldest continuously-inhabited community in the U.S.A. is Acoma Pueblo, where the Acoma people have lived for more than 800 years
WnG9 TIL the oldest alliance in the world that is still in force is between UK and portugal and date back to 1373
ADQk4 TIL Bernard Moitessier was about to set a record for the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the globe when he decided instead to continue on to Tahiti "because he was happy at sea."