› added 12 years ago

131

TIL that a British officer, wearing a monocle in Egypt during WW1, was confronted on the parade ground by lines of Australians with pennies in their eyes, threw his monocle up in the air, caught it in his eye, then turned to the parade and roared, ‘All right, you bastards, let’s see you do that.’

Read more books.google.com.au

via reddit.com

ekDk TIL that during WWII, the Gestapo’s most wanted person was New Zealand born Allied agent Nancy Wake. Among her numerous exploits, she killed an SS soldier with her bare hands, to prevent him from raising the alarm during an undercover raid.
E15ed TIL of the old jewish cemetery in prague. Dating back to 1478, it has gotten full so many times and they just kept adding layers. Now there are 12 layers of graves stacked on top of each other. There are about 12,000 visible tombstones but over 100,000 people buried there.
ZpY6v TIL Louis Braille faced resistance towards and doubts about his writing system for the blind, called Braille. His school burned books he and his classmates had transcribed into Braille, since the school thought that the effectiveness of Braille was a threat to their revenue.
OoQm7 TIL Between 1900 and 2000, the increase in world population was three times greater than during the entire previous history of humanity—an increase from 1.5 to 6.1 billion in just 100 years.
6b5w TIL that when sailors in the Navy pass over the equator for the first time, there is a “Crossing the Line” ceremony and the sailors receive the title “Shellbacks” and “Sons of Neptune.” They get a certificate and its “signed” by Davy Jones and Neptune.