› added 8 years ago

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TIL Ellis Island was man made using the earth removed from under New York City while clearing space for the subway system.

Read more libertyellisfoundation.org

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XED4X TIL that the most successful pirate in history was a Chinese woman named Ching Shih. She commanded the Red Flag Fleet which consisted of 300 ships and 40,000 pirates. She was also one of the only pirates to actually retire.
jN1Pa TIL As the 2011Joplin Tornado hit the local pizza hut, store manager, Christopher Lucas herded 4 employees and 15 customers into a walk-in freezer. Since the door could not shut, he wrapped a bungee cable holding the door shut around his arm until he was sucked into the tornado, killing him.
x66Xb TIL of Palenquero, a Spanish-based creole spoken in the Colombian town of San Basilio de Palenque that mixes Spanish with Kikongo, a language spoken in the Congo region of Africa. It is the last Spanish-based creole language of its kind in Latin America.
mpGM TIL Herodotus wrote about fuzzy, dog sized ants living in India which dug up gold to build ant hills. For centuries, people assumed it was made up. In the 1990s, scientist discovered a fuzzy marmot living in India that digs up gold whenever it burrows.
N7gEQ TIL that penguin prostitutes have sex with unattached males and take a pebble from the male's nest after having sex