› added 8 years ago

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TIL the number of Americans who don’t read books has nearly tripled since 1978.

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QJKVM TIL about Jan Baalsrud, a Norwegian who took 11 commandos into the fjords aboard a fishing boat full of explosives to sabotage the Nazi's. His feet froze solid and an avalanche buried him. He used a knife to amputate his frostbitten toes. His escape made him into a Norwegian national folk hero
gMJ9L TIL Timothy Treadwell, also known as 'The Grizzly Man' originally wanted to become an actor and auditioned for the part of Woody Boyd in Cheers.
loOpV TIL That Napoleon demanded a method of communication that would not require light or sound. Therefore ‘Night Writing’ was developed as a tactile military code, but proved too difficult for Napoleon’s troops to learn and was rejected. Night writing became the basis for braille.
4w0a TIL: Some tarantulas will keep frogs as “pets” to protect their eggs from insects.
gMQNL TIL precolonial Mesoamerican maps depicted both geographic features AND its history using logographs showing what an area was (i.e. a hill) and what happened there (i.e. glyphs for battles etc). As it told their stories, Native city-states used their city-maps as state symbols, akin to modern flags