› added 5 years ago

105

TIL that during the Great Leap Forward, when Chinese sparrows were deemed a pest and tried to be exterminated, some of the sparrows found refuge at the Polish Embassy in Beijing. The Embassy refused to scare away the birds and was surrounded by people playing on drums causing the sparrows to die.

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kODE5 TIL the Netherlands does not have stray dogs.
E14Gw TIL In 1932, General Macarthur and then Major Patton Tear-Gassed WWI Veterans Calling Themselves The "Bonus Army." They Had Marched On Washington Demanding Full Payment For Their Service During WWI. 2 Vets Were Killed. Historians Claim That Without The Protest, There May Have Never Been A GI Bill.
l70Q5 TIL of the Crank Machine, a 19th Century device used in British prisons to keep prisoners occupied by turning sand within a sealed box. See also: the Penal Treadmill
KYYkR TIL Galen argued that the liver must be the primary organ of the body because of its role in the production of the humours. The word for "liver" was often substituted for “heart” in ancient Greek poetry, in phrases like "hit in the liver"
kOmNW TIL that a glass ball will bounce higher than a rubber ball!