› added 6 years ago

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TIL the original Playstation startup sound is actually just 3 short and simple audio samples contained in the BIOS, played at different speeds and overlapped.

kl85 TIL French poet Gérard de Nerval supposedly took a lobster on walks in the Palais Royal gardens in Paris on the end of a blue silk ribbon, saying “they are peaceful, serious creatures. They know the secrets of the sea, they don’t bark, and they don’t gnaw upon one’s monadic privacy like dogs do.”
g6mW TIL that when Admiral Rickover, father of the USA’s nuclear navy, was forced to retire by President Reagan he replied with “Mr. President, that is bullshit” and walked out.
QJwre TIL in WWII, Germany carried out only one land operation in north America, the installation of a secret weather station in Newfoundland. They scattered American cigarette packets and planted a sign saying "Canadian Meteor Service" in case anyone found it, and the site wasn't rediscovered until 1977.
mxyLR TIL that the Salvation Army was up against another Army: the Skeleton Army, who formed in opposition to the SA in the late 19th Century. Their main objection appeared to be to campaign for abstinence. They would counter-march, throw rocks and dead rats at the SA and produced obscene leaflets.
jLvj TIL Three Japanese sailors in 1832 were caught in a storm, stranded at sea for 14 months and shipwrecked on current day Cape Flattery. Making them the first Japanese people in the Pacific Northwest.