› added 4 years ago

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TIL that squirrels are somewhat opportunistic when it comes to their diet. They‘re primarily herbivores but have also been known to eat small birds, young snakes, and smaller rodents, as well as bird eggs and insects.

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Bj7y TIL when Robert FitzRoy, whom Charles Darwin travelled with around the world and later vehemently opposed to Darwin’s views on evolution, killed himself due to depression and money troubles, Darwin donated a sizable sum to FitzRoy’s widowed family to ensure they would not fall on hard times.
DjXD TIL that 39% of US casualties in Vietnam occured through friendly fire
KOY0B TIL that the New York Times put out an editorial in 1922 which claimed that "Several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler's anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded"
dGrK TIL that in WWII nine American pilots crashed into a small island in Japan called Chichijima. 8 of the 9 were murdered, 5 of those 8 were cannibalized. The lone survivor was George H.W. Bush.
j66rM TIL that in the operatic song in The Fifth Element, composer Eric Sierra "purposely wrote un-singable things" so she’d sound like an alien. When opera singer Inva Muls came for the part, "she sang 85% of what [Eric] thought was technically impossible", the rest being assembled in the studio.