› added 4 years ago

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TIL that Japan had no intention of surrendering after the nukes were dropped until emperor Hirohito stepped in. This made some generals so mad that they tried to stage a coup to overthrow the emperor to keep the war going.

Read more japantimes.co.jp

via reddit.com

6E158 TIL of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a man who had a stroke at 43 years old and after a 20-day coma, awoke to find that he was almost fully paralyzed; he could only use his left eyelid. He wrote a memoir, by blinking when the correct letter was said by a person reciting the alphabet over and over again.
WkBb4 Today i learned megapixels are not important in camera quality
WaEL TIL in an act of rare serendipity, the longest eclipse to occur in several hundred years coincided with the development of the supersonic Concorde. So naturally, astronomers chartered the plane to “[chase] the eclipse across the Earth at twice the speed of sound.”
D1NdP TIL that multiple skeletons were found in the basement of Benjamin Franklin's London home. The bones were discovered during a 1998 renovation of the house and were identified as being from nearly a dozen people, including six children.
DV6J TIL: The first person to command a fleet of Roman ships in the Mediterranean messed up so badly they added “the ass” to his name.