› added 9 years ago

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TIL that every attempt to permanently settle the island of North Rona off Scotland has ended with the entire population being wiped out.

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wL94Y TIL that US president Jimmy Carter issued a state of emergency in 1979 that is still active today, over 40 years later. This state of emergency gives "extra ordinary powers" to the president to "seize property, call up the National Guard and hire and fire military officers at will."
QlNd TIL that Mormon holy books were written in faux-King James English (eg thou goeth) - the language of Bibles from Joseph Smith’s time - and contain extensive grammatical errors (eg subj-verb disagreement), suggesting that Smith was trying to make his writing sound superficially “more Biblical”
gYwb TIL: The US Navy diving manual has detailed instructions for escaping a giant clam.
ep6nn TIL in 1949 Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 108 near Sault-au-Cochon, Quebec, crashed killing all 23 aboard following the explosion of a time bomb. Albert Guay wanted to kill his wife and get her life insurance policy ($10,000), and marry another woman.
VMDyQ TIL of the HMS Cockchafer, a British gunboat involved in the Wanhsien Incident. Chinese soldiers tried to seize British merchant ships as compensation for a boat accidentally sunk by a British ship and the Cockchafer intervened; the Cockchafer killed over 1000 Chinese and destroyed 1000 buildings.