› added 13 years ago

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TIL the atmosphere on Venus is so dense that 4 probes landed softly without parachutes or rockets

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wPbY TIL Nixon deployed 25,000 soldiers to NYC in 1970 to deliver mail after carriers went on strike.
mx6Yp TIL Billy Joel got into an argument with a younger man about what the worst era to be young in was. The younger man told Joel that at least he got to grow up in the 50s when "nothing happened." Flabbergasted, Joel began listing the events of the 50s, which later became "We Didn't Start the Fire"
ZpvRB TIL John F Kennedy was a WW2 war hero. In 1943 the torpedo bost he was in command of was struck by a Japanese destroyer. When the boat sank, Kennedy swam a critically injured crew member 3.5 miles to shore. They were rescued by writing a message on a coconut husk.
o0PR TIL Issac Newton called atheism “senseless” and warned against using the law of gravity to view the universe as a mere machine, saying, “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being.”
5VMbp TIL that Aaron Bank, who founded US Army Special Forces, was a real life Inglorious Basterd tasked with killing or capturing Hitler. His mission was only canceled because of how rapidly the war came to an end in Berlin.