› added 7 years ago

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TIL that the word quarantine comes from an Italian variant of ‘quaranta giorni’, meaning forty days, which was the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague epidemic. They would fly this flag known as “Yellow Jack”.

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oBWgo TIL in 1900, when submarines were being introduced to navies, Admiral Arthur Wilson called them underhanded, threatening to hang enemy sub crews as pirates. So, in 1914, when Max Horton commanded Britain's first sub engagement against the Germans, he ordered his crew to fly a Jolly Roger.
dmjE TIL that 1 in 4 11 year olds in London are functionally illiterate, either unable to read or write properly
8aDjP TIL the FBI has a very specific definition for 'serial killer': someone who has intentionally killed at least 3 people, but not all at once. There must be so-called ‘cooling off’ periods between each murder.
e0MVg TIL that by far the most successful predator with a 90-95% success rate when hunting, is the dragonfly. This is in large part due to a combination of very high speed and their ambush strategy, allowing them to rush down insects before they know what to do.
4XjMo TIL that a breed of wool dogs existed on the pacific northwest coast. Indigenous people would keep the dogs isolated on small islands to prevent inter breeding with hunting dogs. The wool dogs were cared for and feed a rich diet of seafood to produce strong yarn to make blankets from.