› added 10 years ago

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TIL a Japanese translator was stabbed to death because he translated “The Satanic Verses”, a novel by Salman Rushdie.

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Wkw5B TIL that during WWII, J. Hunter Reinburg wanted to make ice cream for his men while stationed on a tropical island in the Pacific. He put the ingredients in a can mounted on the underside of his plane and would fly to 25,000 feet where the air temperature was -30 degrees fahrenheit.
78pBP TIL 25 supercars that were seized from the son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator were sold for a combined $27M at auction in Switzerland in 2019
kO1A5 TIL that Australians give tourists ridiculous advice about avoiding attacks from the drop bear (which is actually a hoax depicted as a predatorial, aggressive version of the koala) to confuse or scare them.
6AjX TIL that the U.S. Secret Service cracked down on fake money being used as movie props after an incident in which $1 billion in prop money was blown up during the filming of “Rush Hour 2” in Las Vegas. Some of the bills fluttered into the hands of people who later spent them.
KYDZJ TIL about the “Little Joe Penetrometer:” A pistol crossbow prototype weapon designed by the OSS for covert operations in WW2.