› added 9 years ago

543

TIL There are no more WW1 veterans left.

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4XKl6 TIL that Benjamin Lay, an early Quaker abolitionist, walked into the 1738 annual meeting of Quakers and during an abolition speech plunged a sword into a bible he had hollowed out and filled with a bladder full of red fruit juice. To horrified onlookers, the Bible appeared to be bleeding.
l7NV7 TIL: Nearly 7% of American newspaper employees now work at the NYTimes
Z8Ywa TIL In 1986, 3 volunteers dove into radioactive water to prevent a second explosion at Chernobyl that could have spread fallout across half of Europe. The members of the "suicide squad" were Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov, and, Boris Baranov. Ananenko and Bezpalov are still alive today.
gZ4b TIL J.R.R. Tolkien asked his wife to marry him by mail after no communication with her for 5 years, meanwhile she was already engaged to another man.
69Bv8 TIL that novelist Graham Greene once entered a writing contest for Graham Greene parodies; he submitted three entries, one of which actually won (tied with four other entries).