› added 5 years ago

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TIL during the meltdown, Chernobyl electrician Oleksander Lelechenko saved his younger colleagues from radiation exposure by walking through radioactive water three times to effect emergency repairs alone. He died in Kiev hospital less than 2 weeks after the disaster

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Y777d TIL that the United States Postal Service will allow you to ship bees and scorpions, but not dogs or cats
8e8b4 TIL in 1997, Amy Tobey, an employee in charge of ball-park music at Fenway Park, played ‘Sweet Caroline’ during a Boston Red Sox game because someone she knew just had a baby named Caroline. It caught on with fans, and now many teams from different sports leagues play the song during home games.
lobr TIL the swedish former physical education teacher Richard Juhlin has the best nose for wine (champagne specifically) and in a now infamous blind tasting in 2003, arranged by Spectacle du Monde, he correctly identified 43 of 50 wines. The one who came in second correctly identified four.
J1LRm TIL on Dec 16, 1962 John Paul Scott escaped Alcatraz and swam to Fort Point beneath the Golden Gate Bridge where he was found hypothermic and exhausted. It is the only verified case of an inmate escaping and reaching shore by swimming. He was then returned to Alcatraz.
4ka6g TIL that during the Cephalonia massacre in WWII, after executing most of the Italian officers that had surrendered to them, the Germans forced 20 Italian sailors to take the bodies out to sea in rafts. They then blew up the rafts with the sailors still on them.