› added 3 years ago

81

TIL Silver foxes were selectively bred for domestication in the 1950's in order to study evolution. As with dogs, the ears started to droop as physical manifestation of docility, and some even started vocalizing barks as like dogs

dDRPE TIL about Russell King, a convicted fraudster who claimed to be the wealth manager for the Bahraini royal family. He used this entirely fabricated connection to steal a soccer club, half an investment bank, and the mining rights to all the gold in North Korea
A5Rl TIL the Duke of Montague bet that he could fill a theatre by promising the public the impossible. A newspaper advertised a magician who could turn into any person, dead or alive. The theatre was full and the audience then informed that the magician couldn’t come.
ne5Q9 TIL In Alaska, plants can grow freakishly large due to the 20 hours of sunshine they receive per day - which gives them a photosynthesis bonus. Examples include 138 lb cabbage, 65 lb cantaloupe, & 35 lb broccoli. A noted side effect is that the produce is also much sweeter due to the extra sunlight.
06QA TIL that the Roman fertility deity, Priapus, was also a guardian god who threatened to violate trespassers with his large penis
yQ5Bl TIL: During the Russian famine of the 1920s, Government officials advised starving residents to dig up the dried bones of animals, grind them into flour and bake a “bread substitute [that has] a nutritive value of 25 percent more than rye bread, in spite of its unpleasant smell and taste”.