› added 12 years ago

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TIL All polar bears alive today can trace their ancestry back to one female brown bear who lived in Ireland

Read more wired.co.uk

via reddit.com

VMm4p TIL there are most definitely aliens on our moon
mxGbE TIL In 1831, a train suffered a boiler explosion when a fireman grew tired of listening to it whistle, and tried to stop the noise by placing a piece of lumber on the safety valve and sitting on it. The blocked valve caused the pressure within the boiler to exceed its capacity, and it exploded.
VMmdm TIL of the Book of Judith (~300 BC) whose hero is a beautiful widow who saves her people by befriending and decapitating the Assyrian general.
J1JKQ TIL that at the time of the French Revolution the majority of people in France did not speak French. It is estimated that at the time of the French Revolution in 1789, only half of the population of France could speak French, and as late as 1871 only a quarter spoke French as their native language.
bab4 TIL that in 2006, the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia launched a $1.2 million program to retrain prostitutes as nursing-home caregivers. A supporter explained they had “good people skills, aren’t easily disgusted, and have zero fear of physical contact.”