Post * nWXKB — Curious Curator

› added 1 year ago

145

TIL: Pope Gregory IX issued a Papal Bull in the 11th Century declaring that cats bore Satan’s spirit. Huge numbers of cats were killed throughout Europe, an indirect cause of the Bubonic plague spread by fleas on rats.

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b454 TIL after waiting more than 24 hours for treatment in an NYC psychiatric hospital, a woman collapsed, convulsed, and died in the waiting room and remained there for an hour before anyone checked on her.

jN5QQ TIL in 1921, the 15-year-old former emperor of China, Puyi, decided he wanted to have a telephone. His advisors were afraid it would give him too much independence since Puyi usually had no contact with the outside world. But when he finally got his phone, he just used it to make prank calls.

Ypd7v TIL that During Cambodian genocide, the Khmer Rouge killed children of their prisoners by smashing their heads on a "Chankiri tree". Those soldiers laughed as they did it, since not laughing could indicate sympathy, making them targets, too.

KYbPa TIL in a 2016 study, 72 incidents were reviewed of humpback whales interfering w/ orcas hunting mammals. 61 involved prey species other than humpbacks despite "no apparent benefit" for their intervention leading the authors to conclude that "interspecific altruism" could not be ruled out.

9w0MD TIL that in the last four years 800,000 Americans have moved to Mexico, creating a migrant crisis in Mexico City so bad that many Mexican citizens can't afford rent anymore.