› added 3 years ago

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TIL kamikaze pilots weren't 100% volunteer. Pilots were asked to put their hand up in a big group if they didn't want to volunteer. Amid peer pressure, hardly anyone was able to say no to the mission.

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9m4m TIL the ancient Egyptians measured the flood levels of the Nile and levied taxes according to how high water levels were. If the water level indicated there would be a strong harvest, taxes would be higher.
mQWv TIL of Casey Jones, a railroad engineer who died in a train crash. Having realised a collision would occur, Case ordered his colleague off the train and remained in control of the engine to minimize impact. This saved the lives of all passengers except himself
KYlJR TIL that In 2011, a Chinese construction company called Broad Sustainable Building built a 30-story hotel called the T30 in just 15 days in the city of Hunan. See comments for the rest.
0wRGN TIL Taylor Swift was born into wealth. Her father is “a descendant of three generations of bank presidents” and worked for Merrill Lynch. At the age of 14 her family moved to Nashville where her father purchased a stake in Big Machine, the label to which Swift first signed.
b6vej TIL researchers at John Hopkins thought they'd discovered a medical breakthrough when they found a special metabolite in the urine of schizophrenic patients that nobody else had. Eventually, someone realized that ward was simply being served a different brand of coffee.