› added 12 years ago

253

TIL until the 1700s, all geishas were men.

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kWZE TIL the deadliest sniper in history was a small farmer from Finland named Simo Häyhä, who got over 500 kills in just over 100 days, used no scope, and survived getting shot in the face with an exploding round.
LREZ TIL WW2 pilots carried hollow metal spheres that would implode when they sunk to a certain depth, allowing their location to be triangulated from up to 3000 miles away.
a8kPo TIL between 365 million and 988 million birds are killed annually by striking buildings in the United States
VBJbk TIL a "bit" is equal to 12.5¢, and since the US has no coin worth a bit, "two-bit" (equal to one quarter) became a way of describing something cheap or unworthy, as in "two-bit hustler" or "two-bit operation."
M7VGb TIL Manuel Noriega was a real person, a former dictator who sued Activision over using him in the game Call of Duty Black Ops II without his knowing and as a villain. He lost the case.