› added 10 months ago

29

TIL the Gestapo compiled a "Black Book" listing prominent residents of Great Britain to be rounded up after a successful invasion. In addition to obvious names like Churchill, the Nazis set their sights on Bertrand Russell and Virginia Woolf.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

WkED8 TIL about WWII American Lieutenant John R. Fox. He volunteered to stay behind in a town overrun by enemy troops as US troops retreated. As the enemy advanced he called in an artillery barrage on himself. When US troops later counterattacked they found his body alongside about 100 German soldiers.
BrAjd TIL: "Only about 6,000 stars are visible to the naked eye from Earth, and only about 2,000 can be seen from any one spot. With binoculars the number of stars you can see from a single location rises to about 50,000... With a sixteen-inch telescope... you begin to count not in stars but in galaxies."
pKdO TIL House of Cards had such an impact on British culture that some of the phrases including “You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment” started to be used in the House of Commons.
XxA6 TIL that the certificate behind Michael Scott in The Office is not a degree/diploma, but a certificate of authenticity for a counterfeit “Seyko” timepiece.
6ExkJ TIL becoming a librarian requires a master's degree