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TIL that April 1st was originally celebrated as the New Year day, until in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII ordered a new calender to replace the old one. Those who continued celebrating the New Year on April 1st (either rebels or ignorant of the new changes) were thus branded ‘Fools’.

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PYmXZ TIL that survival expert Bear Grylls, a Special Forces Reservist from 1994 to 1997, was very lucky to survive a parachute malfunction while training with the SAS in Africa. His parachute split at 1,600 feet. He fell and landed, fracturing three vertebrae. Incredibly, his spinal cord stayed intact.
J0j8 TIL in 1621 the Dutch hired Japanese mercenaries to murder 40 inhabitants of Bandaneira Island, a lucrative source of nutmeg. Of the 12,000-15,000 residents all but 1,000 were killed or forced to leave the island as the Dutch created a nutmeg monopoly.
1aXkD TIL George McCoy is Britain's leading Brothel Reviewer with 13 national guidebooks, multiple local guides and even street planners. He often gets free services as he is reviewing and some Brothels even have “Recommended by George McCoy” stickers.
m10vE TIL that Jack Woolams, the test pilot for the first American jet fighter, wore a gorilla mask and a bowler hat while flying so that any sightings of the jet by other pilots wouldn't be believed by people on the ground.
ANonl TIL 287 years is the longest a library book was overdue. While writing a biography on Colonel Robert Walpole in 1956, Prof. John Plumb returned a history book to the Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge after Walpole had checked it out around the year 1667.