› added 7 years ago

144

TIL that when King William II of England was ‘accidentally’ shot through the lung with an arrow, his body was abandoned by the nobles, found by a peasant and returned to Winchester Cathedral by farmers.

Read more wikipedia.org

via ift.tt

JYrO4 TIL the Steel Drum was created in Trinidad and Tobago after the British banned African percussion music and traditional stick-fighting after the Canboulay Riots in 1890. Steel Drums later emerged made from frying pans, dustbin lids, and, of course, oil drums due to the country's oil resources.
p8BZQ TIL there is a 2,700km long wall running through the Sahara desert. Created in 1987 it is still manned 24/7/365 by thousands of soldiers, supported by radar and surveillance equipment, and it features the longest continuous minefield in the world.
xVX1k TIL in 1966 the US explored dropping a nuclear bomb on Hanoi to end the Vietnam War. One of the biggest concerns by the US was that protests would force Japan to close US military facilities in its country.
WkpVo TIL the Planter's Peanut Man's full name is Bartholomew Richard Fitzgerald-Smythe.
gMj19 TIL the men's marathon is typically the only event in the Olympics where the medals are given as part of the closing ceremony rather than in an awards ceremony for the event. This is because the men's marathon is typically the last event in the Olympics.