› added 10 years ago

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TIL that when the invading Prussians banned Danish people from flying their flags, they spent years breeding the red-and-white striped “Danish Protest Pig” as the ultimate passive-aggressive display. It is still extant today, though there are only 140 examples and it is officially a rare breed.

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QNE4M TIL Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was paid only 800 rubles for 'Swan Lake.' The ballet was based on King Ludwig II's life which Russians disliked and also called it "unimaginative" and "unmemorable." Swan Lake was a failure during Tchaikovsky's lifetime.
p8D8O TIL in 2011 British banger racers managed to wreck 100 Austin Westminsters in a night, which meant that they destroyed about 30% of all surviving examples.
a8QMo TIL in 1947, the NY Yankees and Boston Red Sox owners agreed to trade Joe DiMaggio for Ted Williams. The trade collapsed the next day after the Yankees refused to add catcher Yogi Berra to the deal
j61Zj TIL that Kanepi, a small town in Estonia, has a cannabis leaf as its flag’s symbol. The town council let community members vote for the new flag, including the pot leaf symbol as an option. 12,000 of the 15,000 votes went to the pot leaf despite Kanepi being a town of fewer than 5,000.
R57W8 TIL analysis of fish caught in giant water surges occurring immediately following the meteorite impact which caused the KPG extinction event, ending non-avian dinosaurs, show this may have happened in boreal spring; austral autumn—contributing to the death of species coming out of hibernation