› added 11 years ago

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TIL Scientists estimate that 86% of land creatures and 91% of sea creatures remain undiscovered.

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R7Nv7 TIL it's very likely that military-style flails never existed. They are never described in medieval literature or chronicles. The original inventors were not weaponsmiths but illustrators. The smiths who made them from the 16th Century onward were just copying an idea rather than a thing.
XEkWk TIL Walt Disney bought his parents a house and asked his studio to fix the furnace there. His guys botched the job, causing the furnace to leak, resulting in his mother’s death.
x6NM0 TIL about mechanical television from the 20s and 30s, which used a rotating device to scan a scene and generate a signal which would then be viewed on the other end similarly
JYV1V TIL that the Northern Rhodesia Regiment used the motto "Different in Race, Equal in Fidelity"
MeRLB TIL that after the American Civil war some 10,000 to 20,000 Confederates fled to Brazil, founding the city of Americana near São Paulo. Today their descendents called "Confederados" have an annual festival marked by Confederate flags, uniforms, hoop skirts, and foods like fried chicken.