› added 6 years ago

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TIL California Endangered Species Act doesn't include protection provisions for insects; instead of trying to add insects to the act, a group of environmentalists tried to get bees categorized as fish because the act's definition of fish includes animals without backbones.

Read more news.bloombergenvironment.com

via reddit.com

KOj7w TIL Voltaire's joke that the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) was "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire" was mostly true. The center of the Church at the time was actually the Vatican, the HRE's people were mostly Germanic and not Roman, and the nation was never truly unified at any point in its history.
p8KeN TIL of Charles Fraser-Smith (one of the inspirations behind 'Q' in the James Bond movies) designed a special left-hand thread for the disguised screw-off top of a hidden-document container; he thought that "no German would ever think of trying to unscrew something the wrong way."
9wV07 TIL about the 'Sacamantecas' (Spanish for "Fat Extractor"), a bogeyman in Spanish folklore similar to the sack man, based on Manuel Blanco, Spain's first documented serial killer who abducted people to extract their body fat and make soap.
4kAXX TIL Rwanda's Akagera national park is the largest protected wetland in Africa and safari destination with elephants, lions. But in 1997 it was reduced in size by close to 50% as the land was allocated to populations returning after the 1994 genocide
mxYwO TIL lottery winners’ neighbours have a higher chance of going bankrupt, because they try to keep up with the winners' increased rate of spending.