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TIL messenger pigeons only fly home to where they were born and pampered. To keep them loyal, they were isolated in cages while traveling. Releasing them with a message meant they'd rush back to their luxury life. They acted as a speedy, one-way messaging service.

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W7edd TIL In Europe, the tax on fuel for cars is as high as 68% of the total fuel price, but there is no taxation on commercial aviation fuel.
lonwK TIL Dolly Parton gave each family who lost its primary residence in the 2016 TN fires $1,000 a month for five months. When she arrived to help dole out the final payments, she brought the nearly 900 families an unexpected bonus – another $5,000 each for a total of $10,000.
O1aY TIL there is a tree is known as a “novice tree” because only one unfamiliar with the tree would dare touch it, soon discovering that the ants that live inside it are aggressive and venomous.
VMWjm TIL in 1800s, freed African-American slaves were helped to migrate to Liberia to escape oppression into a country of their very own, where they immediately established an apartheid upon their native African cousins, treating them the same way they were treated by their white oppressors.
dDK79 TIL about Sati, a medieval practice among some Indians by which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force commited suicide as a result of her husband's death. It was considered the highest expression of wifely devotion to a dead husband and was said to purge her of all her sins.