› added 1 year ago

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TIL that Leonardo da Vinci did not begin working on the Mona Lisa until he was in his 50s.

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Z8wea TIL the oldest known living terrestrial animal in the world is a tortoise named Jonathon, aged 187. He is two years away from reaching the age of the all-time verified record holder for the world's oldest tortoise, according to Guinness World Records.
NAa1 TIL during the Chernobyl Disaster, Aleksandr Lelechenko saved his colleagues from radiation exposure by walking through radioactive water three times in place of his younger colleagues. He died less than 2 weeks after the disaster.
MEoW TIL severing the limb of a Bloodwood tree triggers the same type of response you’d see if you severed a human limb. The damage causes the release of a deep crimson sap that looks alarmingly like human blood; its sole purpose is to coagulate and seal wounds, but has many other medical uses as well.
gDM7 TIL the first female Athenian doctor had to dress as a man in order to get her education and practice medicine because being a female doctor was a capital crime, but when she became the most popular doctor in town among women in her male guise, the other doctors accused her of seducing her patients.
lZ4K TIL English farmer Angus Wielkopolski discovered that goats produce more milk listening to Mariah Carrey’s all I want for Christmas tune than any other song. They found that the goats produced up to half a pint more when Carey’s famous Christmas track was played.