› added 5 years ago

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TIL that in the 50's and 60's, a single Florida town known as "nub city" was responsible for 2/3rds of America's dismemberment insurance claims. No one was ever convicted of insurance fraud, because juries had a hard time believing even Floridians would be insane enough to cut off their own hands.

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v1MKR TIL that spiders do not sleep, instead they lower their metabolic rate during periods of inactivity to conserve energy. Nor do they blink.
edDg TIL that Ferdinand Cheval, a postman, every day, for 35 years, picked up stones during his daily mail round. He used the stones to build ‘the perfect palace’, one of the most beautiful amateur architectural works known today.
MeX6W TIL an innocent man spent 17 years in jail until he found his doppelganger with the same first name in the same jail. He was then released.
AKjo TIL that the song “Take Me to Church” by Hozier was written in protest to the increasing, and sometimes violent, homophobia in Russia.
nWWXP TIL Glaciers are not the second largest reservoir of water on Earth as previously thought. A 2021 study showed that groundwater is the second largest reservoir of water (at 43.9 million km^3) after Oceans (1.3 billion km^3). Glaciers are a distant third at 158,000 km^3.