› added 4 years ago

240

TIL: Bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima was the less deadly of the 2 options America considered to end the war: Alt was to invade Japan, costing millions of both American and Japanese lives, instead of over 200k Japanese lives lose from the bombs.

Read more history.army.mil

via reddit.com

neoeo TIL that in the 17th century, lacking chemical tests (and knowledge of disease transmission), Italian physician and autopsy pioneer Antonio Valsalva sometimes tasted the fluids he encountered in cadavers in an effort to better characterize them. "Gangrenous pus does not taste good," he wrote.
gBGL TIL African buffalo herds display “voting behavior” to indicate their travel preferences by standing up, staring in one direction and then lying back down. Only adult females vote.
e8R5 TIL the actor who played Uncle Fester, Jackie Coogan, also starred as the kid with Charlie Chaplin in “The Kid”. After his parents spent almost all of his $3-$4 million earnings, the “Coogan Bill” was passed to protect child actors. He was also a WWII pilot and married to Betty Grable.
4ywN TIL NBC cancelled Rob Lowe’s “Lyon’s Den” show after 6 episodes but forced Lowe and creator to film the remaining episodes for DVD. Those two holding creative rights, filmed it as “absurd as possible” incl revealing the main character as a mass murderer
eoZE TIL: The Democratic Donkey originated from opponents of Andrew Jackson, who they frequently referred to as a jackass. Jackson rolled with it and used the donkey on his campaign posters and the image has stuck since.