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TIL there were just 5 surviving longbows from medieval England known to exist before 137 whole longbows (and 3,500 arrows) were recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose in 1980 (a ship of Henry VIII's navy that capsized in 1545). The bows were in excellent finished condition & have been preserved.

LQB8r TIL one episode from the Pokemon anime, titled "Dennō Senshi Porygon", had a scene that caused viewers to experience seizures, temporary blindness, convulsions, and lost consciousness. 685 viewers, all of them kids, had to be taken to the hospital. It never aired outside of Japan.
rNRZx TIL about unisexual mole salamanders which are an all-female complex of salamanders that 'steal' sperm from up to five different species of salamanders in the genus Ambystoma and recombine it to produce female hybrid offspring. This method of reproduction is called kleptogenesis.
OokMX TIL dolphins and porpoises have a number of differences, and here are just two of them. Dolphins’ teeth are cone-shaped, while porpoises’ teeth are spade-shaped. Dolphins typically have a bulbous head and a clearly-defined "beak"; porpoises usually have a rounder face without the pronounced beak.
XjoE TIL the German government will lose copyright of Hitler’s infamous book “Mein Kampf” in 2016, which means they can no longer uphold their 70-year-old ban on it. Germany is already threatening to ban any educational rerelease of the book out of fear it will “advance” the Nazi ideology again.
R700w TIL that the wood of Lignum Vitae is so hard and dense that the bearings of the drive shaft for the the nuclear powered USS Nautilus are made from it.