› added 7 months ago

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TIL about Obelisk, a Queen's Guard horse, who used to lure pigeons to him by dropping oats from his mouth. When they came close, he would stomp them to death. He was eventually taken for additional 'psychological training'.

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xVlPw TIL in the 1960s the United States designed a practical plasma weapon for a space battleship
DAyv TIL Michael the gorilla was taught sign language by Koko, the first signing gorilla. He began signing “Squash meat gorilla. Mouth tooth. Cry sharp-noise loud. Bad think-trouble look-face. Cut/neck lip (girl) hole.” Researchers believed this was a description of the poaching death of his mother.
Eom0 TIL that in 1921 a group of whites burnt the wealthiest black community, in the United States, known as “black wall street”, to ground. Firebombs were dropped from airplanes and hundreds were killed. This massacre was not acknowledged in state history records until 1996.
OoVa TIL when US President McKinley was shot twice in the stomach, he voiced only two concerns - that his aides break the news to his wife gently and to call off the mob that had set upon his assassin. He died 8 days later on September 14th, 1901.
6EdX8 TIL If humans keep fishing at the current pace, there will be no more fish left in the oceans by 2048: The existing world fishing fleet is two to three times larger than the oceans can support and 85 percent of the world’s fish populations are either nearly extinct or on the way to extinction.