› added 4 years ago

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TIL Sperm whales are the loudest animals on earth. At 236 decibels, their click sounds can literally vibrate a human body to death. But when research divers approach them, the whales welcome them into their pod; while modulating their clicks so the divers aren't hurt.

negnY TIL about the Christmas Truce, an unofficial cease-fire that happened on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day during WW1 in 1914. Both sides stopped fighting and held celebrations, even giving gifts to each other.
kObaE TIL that online recipe blogs come with seven different short stories and 30 personal anecdotes in order to create copyright protections for the recipe being blogged about. Recipes get copyright protections while ingredients lists don’t. Someone else can claim your writing if it’s not unique enough.
gMRvb TIL a 1991 New York Supreme Court case found that “as a matter of law”, a house which had been sold was officially considered haunted. The owners had sold the house without disclosing they believed it to be haunted and had advertised it as such, lowering the property value.
8anvZ TIL the German cuisine currywurst was created by a woman named Herta Heuwer in 1949. She obtained ketchup and curry power from British soldiers in Germany and started selling her dish in the district of Charlottenburg, Berlin.
nej79 TIL of the Orgone Accumulator, a device sold in the 1950s to allow a person sitting inside to attract orgone, a massless 'healing energy'. The FDA noted that one purchaser, a college professor, knew it was "phony" but found it "helpful because his wife sat quietly in it for four hours every day."