› added 12 years ago

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TIL that Carlos Hathcock, USMC in Vietnam, crawled inch by inch, 1500 yards for 72hours straight to assassinate an NVA General, narrowly escaping being bitten by a viper, and almost being stepped on by a NVA soldier. He successfully completed the mission, and escaped the same way he had entered.

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8m4L TIL Las Vegas Almost Built a Full Scale USS Enterprise From STAR TREK. The project had funding, but was blocked by the CEO of Paramount.
a8e0J TIL that The Royal Game of Ur is the oldest known board game in the world. The oldest set found is of Ancient Sumerian from the 3rd millennium BC. It was popular for several thousand years, and for good reason. Here is the game explained by Dr. Irving Finkel (it actually looks fun)
4QY5 TIL that Canada’s seargent at arms carries a 4.3 million dollar jewel studded golden mace which he uses to summon the parliment
ADMGg TIL that in Japan, western style underwear became popular only after a tragic incident of a fire in a departmental store (1932) which claimed 14 lives. It's alleged that some women refused to jump into the safety net as they were not wearing panties under their Kimono, the traditional Japanese dress
ne9Zd TIL Bobby Fischer who is considered to be the greatest chess player of all time spent the last 16 years of his life in exile after the United States put a warrant out for his arrest for violating sanctions by participating in a chess tournament held in Yugoslavia which was under a trade embargo.