› added 1 year ago

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TIL about "Project Habakkuk," a plan during World War II to create an aircraft carrier made of ice by the British. They even built a prototype in Canada.

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LBKr TIL that in ancient Rome the punishment for parricide, killing one’s own parent(s), was to be whipped repeatedly and then sewn up in a leather sack along with a serpent, a dog, a rooster and a monkey. The sack was then thrown into a river.
d8bdQ TIL, Robert L. Scott Jr., a retired USAF Brigadier General and WWII flying ace, in 1980 at the age of 72, gained national attention by hiking the 1,900 miles (3050 km) of the Great Wall of China. The journey took 94 days and he sustained himself with 1,200 oatmeal raisin cookies.
e0eWJ TIL J. R.R Tolkien, Otto Frank (The father of Anne Frank), and Adolf Hitler where all present as foot soldiers at the battle of the Somme.
Me0GK TIL that in 1212 some twelve year old named Stephen de Cloyes thought it would be a fucking brilliant idea to retake the Holy Land with an army of children. They trusted complete strangers to sail them to Jerusalem. They all either got sold as slaves or ended up at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
kOrw4 TIL there is an island in the pacific called Yap that uses circular stones as currency. The stones are too large to move so the ownership of the stones is passed by word of mouth to transact business. The location of the stone is irrelevant even in the case of one lost on the bottom of the sea