› added 6 years ago

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TIL in 2016, Capt Bertrand Piccard was the first person to fly around the world in a plane powered entirely by the sun; 25k miles w/o a drop of fuel. His great uncle, Jean Felix Piccard, was a high-altitude balloonist and inspired Gene Roddenberry to create the STNG character Capt Jean-Luc Picard.

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via reddit.com

GaJQ TIL in France it is illegal to gather information on the ethnic origin of its citizens therefore it is impossible to know the percentage of ethnic French who inhabit France.
Vx9Z TIL - Emilia Clarke once did a cameo for Futurama playing a character that didn’t have a sense of smell and fell in love with Zoidberg
epawJ [TIL] Prior to December 22nd 1942, US Citizens pledged allegiance to the flag using the stiff armed Roman salute made infamous by Nazi Germany.
9p5M TIL that some Native American’s have a differing enzyme that tends to lead to easier alcoholism.
4XEkX TIL J.D. Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye, served in WW2 and landed on D-Day while carrying the first six chapters of the book with him. At the end of the war he checked himself into a mental institution. When he got out, he signed back up and participated in the denazification of Germany.