› added 9 years ago

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TIL that Stephen King has made large charitable donations without announcing them because he was “raised firmly to believe that if you give away money and you make a big deal of it so that everybody sees it, that’s hubris. (…) you’re not supposed to make a big deal about it.”

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GAQnj TIL of the great Battle of Mrs. McCormack’s Cabbage Patch, a sassy name for a fight in which Irish rebels attempt to rescue McCormack hostages from police who are using them as human shields.
jgpQ TIL that reindeer are unable to walk and pee at the same time, so they have to take a bathroom break roughly every 6 miles. The distance between stops is so regular that in Finnish, this distance is known as “poronkusema” or “reindeer’s piss” and was a description of distances in the countryside.
0dyYA TIL After his lung cancer diagnosis, actor Yul Brynner wished to warn people against smoking. After his death, the american cancer society aired an ad with the actor saying: "Now that I'm gone, I tell you: just don't smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn't be talking about any cancer"
9w7NQ TIL the US suicide rate has risen steadily over the past 18 years and in 2022 (14.3 per 100,000 people) it reached its highest point since 1941 (15 per 100,000).
VMMbD TIL there are more tigers living in captivity in the US (at least ~5000, likely much more) than there are living in the wild globally (~3200). Of those ~5000, only ~6% live in zoos and accredited facilities. The rest are privately owned, many living in residential backyards.