› added 8 months ago

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TIL that the longest scientific name of any living or fossil organism is Myxococcus llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochensis, a bacterium isolated from soil collected at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, one of the longest place names in the world.

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eD4J TIL that after filming Zulu director Cy Endfield could not pay the Zulu extras because of South Africa’s apartheid laws, he circumvented this by leaving all the animals they used including Cattle, a gift more valuable than money to the Zulus.
0j11 TIL Mary Anning was an English woman who discovered dinosaur fossils, was the first to assemble a full skeleton of an Ichthyosaur, a self-taught scientist, a business owner, confirmed the existence of the Pterodactyl, and one of the founders of Paleontology.
VBEbB TIL Once a Finnish farmer plowed up and accidentally cut the cable which connected Moscow to Washington, famously known as the "Red Telephone", put in place after the Cuban Missile Crisis out of the necessity of a quick, clear, and direct communication line between the two superpowers.
nme7 TIL after the governor of Otrar rejected his trade offers, Genghis Khan had him executed by pouring molten silver in his ears and eyes.
GY7nJ TIL: (1906) Long after slavery was abolished there was a caged african man and monkey on display in the Bronx Zoo. Ota Benga later on committed suicide.