› added 11 years ago

97

TIL Paul McCartney earns $400,000 a year off his Christmas song, which is widely regarded as the worst song he ever recorded.

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6EXlJ TIL hippos don't swim. They charge through the water, always maintaining some contact with the riverbed or lakebed, using their feet to bounce off the bottom to propel themselves forward.
mokv TIL Blackcurrant fruit was banned in the United States in 1911 because the plant carries a disease that affects native White Pine trees. Whole forests were wiped out due to the disease. Because of the ban, not lifted until 2003, the flavor is relatively unknown in the US.
Gw9E TIL that Lee Fierro, who played Alex Kintner’s mom in Jaws, went to a restaurant in Martha’s Vineyard in 1999. After seeing an “Alex Kintner Burger”, she mentioned that she played the mother in that movie. The manager who went out to meet her was none other than Jeff Voorhees, who played Alex.
R5RV1 TIL the Old State House in Boston USA, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, was slated for demolition in 1800’s. It was preserved in its original site only because Chicago threatened to transport it brick by brick and make it a National Monument there instead.
xVwe1 TIL that the 1877 novel Black Beauty, now considered a children's classic, was written for adults by author Anna Sewell to highlight the problem of animal abuse and was subtitled "The Autobiography of a Horse." Ironically, Sewell was an invalid at the time and could not ride herself.