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104

TIL during the siege of Leningrad, a group of Russian botanists holed up in a secret vault starved to death rather than consume the greatest collection of seeds they were guarding for a post-apocalyptic world.

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pBQe TIL There is an island called Socotra and it has 825 rare species of plants, 90% of its reptile species and 95% of its land snail species do not occur anywhere else in the world.
bx4Q TIL up to 40% of the United States food supply goes uneaten
rRkm0 TIL that "Home Alone" has become a Christmas tradition in Poland, where it's known as "Kevin Sam w Domu" (literally "Kevin Alone in the House"), with Polish TV channels repeatedly airing the film around Christmas Eve for the last 25 years.
VkNQ TIL that in 2002, when Bruce Willis’s daughter suggested he buy girl scout cookies for troops, Willis responded by buying 12,000 cookies and sending them to sailors and soldiers in the Middle East.
xVdV5 TIL that the Catholic Church issued a Papal Bull in 1567 condeming bullfighting as "cruel and base spectacles of the devil and not of man.", with the organisers and attendees barred from it under the threat of being excommunicated.