› added 10 years ago

70

TIL the Chernobyl power plant didn’t go completely off line until the year 2000

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e06r6 TIL there is a bird that lacks a singing voice to attract mates -- instead it beats its wings faster than the speed of sound to create sonic booms that can be heard by all the females in the area
R5WG1 TIL Cy Young, the namesake of the Cy Young Award, isn't actually named Cy; his full name is Denton True Young. He earned the nickname "Cy" due to the cyclone-like appearance of his pitches.
QNnkX TIL Kary Mullis, a Nobel Prize laureate, wrote about an encounter with a fluorescent, talking raccoon. He suggested it might have been an extraterrestrial alien.
neJ5d TIL "Weird Al" Yankovic did not intend his song "Albuquerque" to be well-received as he wrote it as a joke specifically to "annoy people for 12 minutes." It ended up becoming one of his most popular songs.
d8M69 TIL in WWII, a dog named Gander was a sergeant of the Canadian Royal Rifles. He fought on the frontlines against the Japanese on several occasions. Gander was posthumously decorated when he picked up a live Japanese grenade and charged enemy lines with it.