› added 5 years ago

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TIL: In the 1880s, the Fenian Brotherhood, Irish separatists living in the US, commissioned John Holland to build a submarine to attack British ships. Due to a legal dispute, they refused to pay for the submarine, stole it, couldn't pilot it, and Holland refused to teach them.

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9wBR7 TIL that there are small groups in Britain and France trying to revive the early medieval Celtic Church via the Syriac (Middle Eastern) rites. At one point in the ‘60s, the so-called “Celtic Orthodox Church” had “ten bishops and two to three lay followers”.
6Ebv8 TIL The Bayeux Tapestry is not a tapestry
gnVW TIL that, over time, an amount of petroleum equal to 80 Exxon Valdez oil-spills, 100 to 150 barrels/day, has naturally bubbled up through seeps into the ocean floor sediment off the coast of Santa Barbra, CA. It is still continuing as you read this.
v180D TIL 55% of Americans think it's OK to declaw(they remove part of the bone not just the actual claw) cats. Up to 25% of pet cats in the USA have been declawed. Studies suggest that declawed cats are more likely to have health problems, such as back pain, or behavioural problems, such as aggression.
8a16Z TIL that police playing paintball further delayed the transition of a mental institution into a civil war museum in West Virginia.