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TIL there is a bird that can imitate the sounds of chainsaws and car alarms.

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BgrDx TIL a significant part of the local economy of Kinmen County is making high quality chef's knives from the over 1 million artillery shells fired on the island in the 1950s. Shells filled with propaganda leaflets instead of explosives landed whole, leaving tons of high quality steel lying around.
OoydR TIL contrary to fears of 'idiocracy', IQ around the world has seen substantial increase, in Britain rising 14 IQ points since the 1940s. Better health, nutrition, education and standards of living are thought to be the cause
9bJp TIL A man stayed drunk during the entire Civil War to avoid being drafted
WkkxX TIL That function of the stripes of the zebra is to give it a form of security through obscurity by camouflaging it against the other zebras not against the grass.
GA9nQ TIL of Beer's law, which describes how light attenuates when traveling through a liquid. Named after a German physicist, the property was actually originally observed by a Frenchman looking at wine.